South Korean LCC T’Way Air has confirmed the launch of two of the four European routes that it gained through the competition remedies applied to the proposed Korean Air-Asiana merger.
As part of an agreement reached with the European Commission (EC) in February, Korean Air committed to providing launch support and airport slots to T’Way on selected routes. The routes in question are between Seoul and Barcelona, Frankfurt, Paris and Rome.
Until now, T’Way has only given general estimates of when it will begin service on these routes. When it granted conditional approval, the EC said the T’Way routes must be launched before the Korean-Asiana merger can proceed.
T’Way announced it will launch three weekly Seoul-Rome flights from Aug. 8, as well as three weekly Seoul-Barcelona flights from Sept. 11. It has begun selling tickets for these services, both of which will be operated with Airbus A330s.
The carrier said its Frankfurt flight will launch in October, but it has yet to set a specific date or sell tickets. There is also no date set for the Paris route, which has been a more complicated process.
French aviation officials previously raised objections because current air service agreements allow only two Korean carriers on the Paris route, which is now served by Korean Air and Asiana. This would theoretically preclude T’Way starting service until Asiana is merged into Korean Air. However, T’Way said it is now cleared to launch the Paris flights after an agreement was reached between Korean and French officials.
T’way already operates one route to Europe: service to Zagreb, Croatia, that began on May 16. It primarily operates medium-haul routes to Southeast Asia, Japan and China.
The airline has about 30 Boeing narrowbodies in its fleet, as well as three A330-300s, according to the Aviation Week Network Fleet Discovery database. Korean Air is expected to lease more A330s to T’Way as part of its support for the smaller carrier’s new European routes.
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