Korean Air will begin flying its A380 super jumbo jets between Atlanta and Seoul, Korea, on Aug. 2, Chaney Park, the airline’s regional manager, told Global Atlanta Jan. 31.
The airline had planned to start the flights as early as this month.
“The launch was delayed because of fleet utilization. Launching has to be at the right time and since Korean Air is receiving more A380s, it can now allocate one for Atlanta,” said Penny Pfaelzer, a spokeswoman.
Mr. Park said that the super jumbos are to replace the Boeing 747 and 777 jets used on flights between Seoul’s Incheon International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The 14-hour flights are to leave Atlanta at 1:10 p.m. and arrive in Seoul at 4:55 p.m. in keeping with current schedules, and the flights from Seoul to Atlanta leave at 10:30 a.m. and arrive at Hartsfield at 11:30 a.m.
Due to the A380’s size, Hartsfield-Jackson has had to make gate modifications to serve the double-decker jet on Concourse E and widen taxiways and runways. Opened last May, the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal, also known as Concourse F, is unable to accommodate the jets. Korean Air is the first airline to fly A380s into Atlanta.
Mr. Park said that Korean Air’s traffic between Atlanta and Seoul has been growing at 10 percent a year and that the airline has received six of the 10 A380s it has ordered. It already flies A380s to Los Angeles and New York in the United States, as well as to Hong Kong and Frankfurt, Germany.
Currently Korean Air has 10 flights a week between Atlanta and Seoul with a daily flight and the additional flights on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Mr. Park said that as of now there were no plans to change the number of flights.
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