Asiana Airlines reduces flights to China

Asiana Airlines will reduce its number of flights to China starting late next month, and operate smaller planes bound for the country, Korea’s second-largest air carrier said Monday.

The decision came after the deployment of four additional launchers for a U.S. anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here last week, which provoked a strong backlash from the world’s most populous country.

Asiana will use an A321 for flight from Incheon to Guangzhou, instead of the relatively bigger B767. It will also operate an A321 for flights from Gimpo to Beijing and Incheon to Changchun, instead of an A330, which can carry 100 more passengers than the former.

The airliner will reduce its number of flights from Incheon to Guilin, from seven flights a week to four.

Although Asiana claimed it has regularly reduced the number of flights to China in winter due to lower demand, the company admitted it will run fewer flights this winter than a year earlier.

It already decided this April not to run 78 flights to China, including those from Incheon to Dalian, Busan to Beijing, Incheon to Jinan, Cheongju to Beijing and Muan to Bejing, all of which were expected to suffer from decreased demand over the THAAD row.

Given that more than 20 percent of Asiana’s flights are bound for China, the latest reduction is expected to weigh on the company’s performance in the third quarter.

Asiana covered the losses with diversification of its flights and carriage of freight in the second quarter, which is regarded as the slow season. However, it posted a 26.5 percent lower operating profit in the first quarter, due to the declining number of passengers from China.

An Asiana spokesman also admitted he cannot exclude the THAAD issue from the recent reduction.

“It is true both the number of passengers from China to Korea and Korea to China has decreased since the political dispute,” he said. “Korean customers are also reluctant to visit China.”