btonkid12345

Cool guess. This is why everyone advocates redeeming Skypass Miles to fly mainland to HI on Delta, right?

Or why 9 seats are available out of DTW in Delta One using Virgin miles?

tentseller

I have been redeeming TPAC J on KE with Skymiles at DL.com for 140k for the last few years.
Better and easier availabilities than D1.

1Banker

flyerCO

Were you already upgraded? If so you should still be in J. Callback and get fixed. They can route via PVG and MU or in some cases NRT and NH.

Duke787

Just to confirm no mileage upgrades using SkyMiles available at this point?

Looking at a likely SIN - ICN flight that is booking into B with KE (thanks DL for killing SIN/NRT forcing me this direction) -- would love to use miles to upgrade to J on that flight if possible (and a reasonable fare).

Duke787

KE owner Hanjin Kal is acquiring Asiana. Wonder what impact this has on the JV. I assume KE stays put in SkyTeam and Asiana disappears eventually as a brand (and leaves *A) with the assets moving under the KE brand.


https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-as...-idUKKBN27W04W

BenA

I agree it's likely KE stays in SkyTeam, or at least stays partnered with DL.

Delta is heavily dependent on the KE partnership now, while United has a number of other partnerships in the region other than Asiana (and very close cooperation with ANA).

This is a bold move and a huge turnaround for an airline that was on the brink of collapse a few short years ago. I do think it's a smart move on the Korean government's part to merge two struggling airlines into one ultra-powerful one, although they may come to regret the move when there's very little domestic competition in the future.

The bigger mess is going to be ICN: getting between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 is a huge fiasco, which was fine when there were almost no cross-airline connections but now may be a decision the airport authority regrets...

VFR

As far as I can tell from some quick research, OZ has ATI with UA but doesn't have a coordinated joint venture in the 2020 sense of the term, and KE only has one with DL. These joint ventures are incredibly valuable to airlines, and the US aviation market is the largest in the world. I'm not sure how much success the DL/KE joint venture has had so far (ICN doesn't quite seem like the AMS of Asia yet), but it's likely that both players will wish to hang on to and expand it.

bgriff

It is not an ideal setup, but I don't know that it's a disaster -- there is an airside-ish (international but not post security) train connecting the terminals and the midfield concourse, so passengers have to take the train to wherever they are departing from and go through security there, and then can't move to other terminals/concourses. I think pretty much all connecting passengers at ICN have to reclear security anyway, so it doesn't really matter if you have to take the train to another building before doing so. As long as Korean has lounges in each of their departing areas, it doesn't really affect passengers too badly -- it's similar to how you can't just visit another terminal at LHR after clearing security, for example (and much easier than LHR for connecting passengers making inter-terminal transfers). It does limit Korean's flexibility somewhat in that they can't change gate assignments from one building to another close to departure, but manageable.

Given that Asiana is much smaller than Korean, and given the contraction in the industry overall, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire operation can fit in T2 for a while, and perhaps Korean's kingdom eventually becomes T2 plus the concourse while foreign carriers and perhaps the LCCs take over T1.

The only part I'm not sure about is how domestic->international connections at ICN work? It also limits the ability to eventually move to a system like in Europe where passengers on inbound flights from some countries are able to do I->I connections without reclearing security, but I don't know of any major Asian hubs that allow that right now anyway.

MSPeconomist

There are some LCCs operating in South Korea, especially to leisure destinations. I'm not sure how much international (primarily within Asia--I'm thinking of Air Asia affiliates and similar, plus some LCC offspring of major Asian carriers such as SQ and CX, to the extent they still exist) LCC service touches South Korea.

kop84

I would bet there is enough competition from rail and other transit modes to keep domestic fares reasonable.

fly747first

Right. I highly doubt EVA and SIA would vote to welcome KE into *A and same for CX in OW.

RealHJ

Typically one has to go through security re-check before getting into the terminal and being able to go on the train. The two separate trains T1-"concourse" and T2-"concourse" are post security. (But may be it's different if you arrive in the "concourse," that mid-terminal satellite building.)

The annoying thing is that there is no direct T1 to T2 train. You have to get out at the "concourse" and scan your boarding pass, and only if you have a flight departing on the other terminal can you get through the gates to the train going to that terminal - making connections difficult if you couldn't do OLCI all the way through (but just manually entering a valid number departing from the subject terminal works, which renders the whole gate between the two train loops sort of meaningless). I think that could be readily remedied by making the train go T1->"concourse"->T2, and vice versa, directly, vs. only T1<->"concourse" and "concourse<->T2 as is the case now, requiring the connection, which is a bit annoying, and takes up valuable time.

That being said, connecting between terminals at ICN will get you a good cardio workout, as it's usually quite a distance to the train, and then to the gates, so if KE or ST operates in both terminals the MCT will have to go up. I bet it'll be just T2 + "concourse" for KE and ST, with T1 for all non-ST airlines.

MSPeconomist

Before T2 was opened, the concourse was used by KE partners such as DL and the KE lounge offered there for partner flights was inferior to the one in the main T1 building used by KE flights. I hope DL isn't relegated to the concourse at ICN ever again.