Jeju Air To Cut 1000 Flights By March

In the aftermath of the recent tragedy in Korea, Jeju Air announced that they would cut many flights by March. This includes all flights to and from Muan International Airport, where the accident occurred, as the airline will pull all their operations from the airport.

A Move to Recover Trust and Safety

On January 3rd, Jeju Air held its usual press conference and incident briefing regarding the crash of Flight 2216 at the Mayfield Hotel in Seoul. As part of the measures taken to ensure safe operations, the airline announced that "1900 flights will be cut, and is being processed with the aviation ministry". The lessened operations will start on January 6th to March 29th, when the winter season schedule ends. 

The first routes to be cut include 838 flights on 4 domestic routes, along with 278 flights on 5 international routes that originate in Muan, totaling 1116 flights. Particularly, all flights to and from Muan between Jeju, Nagasaki, Bangkok, Kota Kinabalu, Taipei, and Zhangjiajie are all canceled.

Flights between Jeju and Gimpo (Seoul), Cheongju and Busan are also being cut. The other ~800 flights are being discussed with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, to be announced next week.

Meanwhile, Jeju Air had made around $177M in revenue from selling tickets in the 3rd Quater last year. Jeju Air currently has $95M in cash assets. The airline also had around 33,000 domestic flights and 34,000 international flights canceled in a period just between December 29th and 13:00 of December 30th.

During the press conference, a reporter asked about the negative performance impacts due to the reduction in flight operations. Song Gyung Hoon, Chief Financial Support Officer of Jeju Air replied that "performance stats are not something to be currently considered". He added that "ensuring operational safety is the priority for now".