News
Delta Air Lines announces Minneapolis-Incheon and cancels Hong Kong
June 15th 2018
On Thursday Delta Air Lines announced a daily St.Paul/Minneapolis Seoul’s Incheon route will be launched in “in 2019” in cooperation with joint venture partner Korean Air. Read More »
“Delta’s future is global and adding another nonstop flight to the joint venture’s Seoul-Incheon hub with Korean Air expands on our long-term vision,” said Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian. “This will be a great driver of international commerce for the Minneapolis/St. Paul community and Minnesota as well as benefiting our customers, our employees and our owners.”
“This is the first direct service between MSP International Airport and South Korea. We are thrilled Delta Air Lines has decided to provide it,” said Brian Ryks, executive director and CEO of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which owns and operates MSP. “Travelers can connect to dozens of other cities in Southeast Asia through Seoul’s Incheon Airport, providing Twin Cities businesses with easy access to customers and clients in critical growing markets.”
Delta will fly a three-class B777-200ER on the service that will have 28 Delta One suites in business class, 48 Premium Select premium economy and 220 standard economy seats.
Incheon will be Delta’s second trans-Pacific nonstop flight from its Minneapolis hub, complementing an existing service to Tokyo-Haneda, where Delta intends to operate refurbished B777-200ERs from 2019.
The route is a direct result of the Delta-Korean Air trans-Pacific joint venture (JV), which took effect on May 1 this year. Under the agreement, the SkyTeam members have: commenced full reciprocal code sharing on each other’s networks. Customers can earn miles on Korean Air’s SKYPASS programme and Delta’s SkyMiles programme. The two carriers also will implement joint sales and marketing initiatives and increase belly cargo cooperation across the Pacific.
Earlier this year, Delta and Korean Air co-located into the new Terminal 2 at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, substantially reducing connecting times for customers. Korean Air rival, Asiana Airlines, does not have a trans-Pacific joint venture with either Air Canada or United Airlines, its Star Alliance partners in North America.
Regulators require that Korean Air and Delta must not reduce capacity on the five South Korea-U.S. routes they operate without competition. They are Korean Air’s Seoul to Las Vegas and Washington Dulles flights and Delta’s Seoul-Detroit, Seoul-Seattle and Seoul-Atlanta (operated by both airlines). Delta recently announced Seoul-Minneapolis will be added to that list.
The partners also must provide annual reports on improvements to customer benefits from the tie-up and any changes in capacity.
Separately on Thursday, Delta said it would cancel its six times a week Hong Kong-Seattle B777 route from October 4. The airline said the cancellation of the service was a “difficult business decision”. Passengers can continue to reach Hong Kong via Incheon, it said.
Delta also said it would resume Seattle-Osaka services “in 2019”with a B767-300ER.
