Delta Air Lines expanded its transpacific partnership with Korean Air June 14 as the Atlanta-based carrier announced a new nonstop route between Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) and Osaka, Japan’s Kansai International (KIX) starting in 2019. Specific schedule details were not released.
Delta will codeshare the flight with Korean Air, as part of the joint venture (JV) partnership launched between the airlines in May. Delta plans to fly the route with a Boeing 767-300ER equipped with 25 lie-flat seats in Delta One, 29 “comfort plus” seats and 171 main cabin seats.
Concurrent with the Osaka route announcement, Delta said it had “made the difficult business decision” to end its nonstop Seattle-Hong Kong flights, with the last flight out of Hong Kong set for Oct. 4. Delta service between the two cities will continue, but will be offered via Seoul-Incheon (ICN) on Korean Air.
The new Osaka route follows on Delta’s plan to launch nonstop flights in 2019 between Minneapolis/St. Paul International (MSP) and ICN; as with Osaka, specific schedules will be released later.
The MSP-ICN flights will take advantage of the Delta-Korean Air JV, as the two SkyTeam alliance-founding member airlines are co-located in the newly opened Terminal 2 at ICN. The new Minneapolis route complements three existing US-Seoul nonstop routes (Seattle, Detroit and Atlanta). Delta said it will utilize a “newly refreshed” Boeing 777-200ER on the MSP-ICN route, with 28 Delta One suites including a full height door, 48 premium select cabin seats and 220 main cabin seats.
Delta-Korean Air codesharing ramped up following the JV partnership announcement. According to Delta, 132 Delta-operated flights from Seattle, Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Chicago and Dallas were coded with Korean Air flight numbers in May, adding to 164 existing Korean Air codeshare markets on Delta in North America from Delta hubs in Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York-JFK.
In June so far, 66 additional markets from Detroit, Portland, Seattle and Atlanta have become North American codeshares, and Korean Air’s code was added to five Delta-operated flights from Japan to the same US airports. The new additions expand on 36 existing codeshare routes with Asia, Delta said.
ATW
