|Founded||February 17, 1988|
|Frequent-flyer program||Asiana Club|
|Airport lounge||Asiana Lounge|
|Alliance||Star Alliance (2003)|
|Fleet size||79 (+42 orders)|
|Destinations||106 incl. cargo|
|Company slogan||Always with you|
|Parent company||Kumho Asiana Group|
|Headquarters||Osoe-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, South Korea|
|Revised Romanization||Asiana Hanggong|
Asiana Airlines Inc. (Hangul: 아시아나 항공; RR: Asiana Hanggong; KRX: 020560; formerly Seoul Airlines) is one of South Korea's two major airlines, along with Korean Air. Asiana has its headquarters in Asiana Town in Osoe-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The airline has its domestic hub at Gimpo International Airport and its international hub at Incheon International Airport (70 kilometres (43 mi) from central Seoul). As a member of Star Alliance, it operates 14 domestic and 90 international passenger routes, and 27 cargo routes throughout Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania. As of December 2012, the company employs 9,073 people. The majority of Asiana's pilots, ground staff, and flight attendants are based in Seoul.
Asiana won the prestigious Airline Of The Year award in 2010 by Skytrax. It also won the "Best Overall Airline In The World" award from the Business Traveler magazine in 2012. Additionally, Asiana is one of only seven airlines rated as 'five-star' by Skytrax, along with Cathay Pacific, Hainan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and All Nippon Airways, with the latter being added to the ranking on the 29th of March, 2013.
Asiana Airlines is the largest shareholder in Air Busan, a low-cost regional carrier joint venture with Busan Metropolitan City. Asiana is also currently an official sponsor of Korea Football Association.
Korean Air (associated with the Hanjin Group), which was privatized in 1969, had a monopoly on the South Korean airline industry until the establishment of Asiana in 1988. Asiana's formation did not come about as a policy initiative favoring liberalized market conditions but rather because of pressure from other chaebols and interests who wanted to compete. It was formed by the Kumho Asiana Group (formerly Kumho Group) and was originally known as Seoul Air International. Asiana was established on 17 February 1988 and started operations in December 1988 with flights to Busan. As of 2007 the airline was owned by private investors (30.53%), Kumho Industrial (29.51%), Kumho Petrochemical (15.05%), foreign investors (11.9%), Korea Development Bank (7.18%), and others (5.83%).
Beginning Regular Service 
Asiana began operations in December 1988 using Boeing 737 Classic with flights to Busan and Gwangju. In 1989, Asiana began regular services to Jeju City, Gwangju, and Daegu and later the same year, Asiana began international chartered flights to Sendai in Japan. In 1990, Asiana began its first scheduled international service to Tokyo, Nagoya, Sendai, and Fukuoka. In the same year, Asiana had 9 Boeing 747-400s, 10 Boeing 767–300s and 8 Boeing 737–400s. In early 1991, Asiana began services to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei. Transpacific flights to Los Angeles began in December 1991 with a Boeing 747-400Combi. Services to Vienna, Brussels, and Honolulu began in the mid 90's. In 1993, Asiana began services to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
Expansion as Global Carrier and Joining Star Alliance 
Asiana Airlines has rapidly expanded since its establishment in 1988 to become a midsized, global carrier with a current fleet of 79 aircraft. On 1 March 2003, the airline became a full Star Alliance member, expanding its worldwide network and brand on a global scale. In 2004, the airline added the Airbus A330 and the Boeing 777-200ER to its fleet, and rapidly expanded its routes into mainland China. Currently it provides international services to 70 cities in 23 countries on 90 routes, and domestic services to 12 cities on 14 routes. It also provides international cargo services to 28 cities in 14 countries on 27 routes by Asiana Cargo, the airline's freight division. In 2011, the airline had net sales of US$5.3 billion.
New Image 
On February 2006, Asiana Airlines modernised its corporate identity to harmonise with those of other divisions of its parent company the Kumho Asiana Group. The names of the travel classes have changed from First Class, Business Class, and Economy Class to First, Business, and Travel classes respectively, and the colors of the travel classes have changed to yellow, blue and red for First, Business, and Travel Class, respectively. New uniforms also changed for the crew.
Future Developments 
Since the 2000s, Asiana has focused on long-haul services and fleet modernisation. By December 2013, Asiana will increase its transpacific passenger routes from 44 to 49 operations per week. The airline plans to increase the size of its fleet from 80 to 85 by then too. With the delivery of the Airbus A380 in late 2014, the fleet size will grow to 88, and by 2015 will include 36 narrow-body, 40 wide-body, and 12 freight aircraft.
Notable Achievements 
Asiana began to focus on being an environmentally friendly company in the mid-90s and has been an industry leader with some of its efforts in this regard, such as completely banning in-flight smoking and cigarette sales in 1995. The company was awarded first in class certification by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for meeting criteria ISO 14001in 1996. In 2001 Asiana Airlines was recognized for being the "first environmentally friendly company within the service industry" by the Ministry of Environment Republic of Korea. Some of Asiana's other environmentally-minded programs include an emissions measurement and reduction system, reducing pollution from ground facilities and partnering with the Rainforest Alliance for coffee served on board.
On 17 February 2009, Air Transport World(ATW) awarded Asiana the "Airline of the Year", which is considered one of the most honorable awards in the airline industry. and later in May 2010, Asiana Airlines was named the best airline in the world by Skytrax at the 2010 World Airline Awards. Asiana came in second place behind Qatar Airways in 2011 and 2012.
Asiana Airlines serves destinations on four continents with a well-developed Asian network covering that also takes in important cities in China, Japan, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. The airline serves a number of gateway cities in North America and Europe while retaining its limited coverage of Oceania. It is the first airline that developed regular passenger routes between Seoul and Tashkent, Almaty, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Koror. Besides regular routes, Asiana also has served a number of seasonal charter routes from Seoul to some tourist attractions such as Brunei, Nha Trang, Qiqihar and Zhangjiajie. Asiana Cargo, the airline's subsidiary for cargo, also has a wide network, especially in Europe and North America, and currently serves some of the cities which Asiana do not offer regular passenger services, such as Brussels, Vienna, Milan, Atlanta, Miami and Portland.
In July 2013, Asiana will begin its regular passenger service to Jakarta and Denpasar, Indonesia. Currently it also plans to launch a new passenger route between Seoul and Wuxi by December 2013. While trying to achieve a new traffic right for Korea-Mongolia route, the airline also considers more investment in Seoul-Central Asia routes, including launching new service to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, by February 2014.
|Airbus A350-800||—||8||10||TBA||Original orders included 10 of each variations(−800, −900, −1000).
All deliveries in 2016.
|—||6||—||TBA||Entry into service(EIS): May 2014|
|Boeing 767–300||7||—||—||0||15||235||250||Features slanted/flat at-an-angle Business Class seats; to be phased out|
|Total 246: First(8/OZ First Suite), Business(24/OZ Quadra Smartium)
Total 295: Business(24/OZ Quadra Smartium)
Total 296: Business(22/OZ Quadra Smartium)
|Asiana Cargo Fleet|
|Boeing 747-400F||4||—||—||120,000 kg (265,000 lb)||International medium-long haul
Asia, Europe and North America
|Boeing 747-400BDSF||6||—||—||120,000 kg (265,000 lb)||International medium-long haul
Asia, Europe and North America
|Boeing 767-300ERF||1||—||—||54,000 kg (119,000 lb)||Regional short-medium haul
China, Japan and Southeast Asia
- The average Asiana Airlines fleet age was 8.2 years old in October 2010.
- Asiana assigns Hong Kong, Saipan and Taipei to its Southeast Asia grouping.
Retired fleet 
The company has previously operated the following equipment:
Asiana Airlines offers five classes of services - First Suite class, First class, Business Smartium class, Business class and Travel(economy) class. Seat figurations and in-flight entertainment systems vary by the type of the aircraft and its operating routes, although Asiana is likely to simplify those with upcoming deliveries of its new orders on Airbus.
First Suite class and First class are mainly offered in between Seoul and Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and Frankfurt. Private amenity kits, pajamas and on-board souvenirs are offered for passengers. A passenger can order in-flight meals 48 hours prior to departure. Every first class seat is equipped with personal AVOD systems.
Besides those routes, most of Asiana's international flights offers simply two type of classes - business smartium class or business class as the highest class, and travel class, without first class. Some of short-length international flights and charter flights are operated by mono-class basis, as well as all of the airline's domestic flights. Every business smartium class seat is equipped with AVOD, while some of business class seats are equipped with PTV, while its upgrading to AVOD will be continued by 2014. Except some routes operated by B767 and A320-100 aircraft, most of Asiana's travel class also offers AVOD or PTV systems. In-flight entertainment system is not offered on domestic routes, since its longest domestic flight only takes approximately one hour.
Asiana Airlines also provides initiative cabin services which are never preceded by any other airline; this includes charming service(make-up), sommelier service(wine tasting), facial painting(for children) and the magic performance. More than 15 special in-flight meals are provided for passengers who cannot eat regular meals for religious, medical or age reasons. Some of Asiana aircrafts are equipped with in-seat power suppliers on every class. In addition, Asiana offers two in-flight magazines, 'Asiana'(a travel magazine) and 'Asiana Entertainment', both available on every class.
Frequent flyer programme 
Asiana Club is Asiana Airline's frequent flyer programme, formerly Asiana Bonus Club. Asiana Club has five tiers: Silver, Gold, Diamond, Diamond Plus and Platinum. To acquire or maintain each tier, members are required to accrue 0, 20000, 40000, 100000 miles in two calendar years from the 'reference date'. Status miles are based on 'On-board mileage', which includes miles accumulated by traveling with Asiana Airlines or Star Alliance airlines. Also, members can accrue miles by flying 'partner airlines' such as Qatar Airlines. Miles accumulated in the programme entitle members to bonus tickets, class upgrades and other products and services such as dining at Outback Steakhouse.
Asiana has endorsement deals with the following:
- Park Ji-Sung  – Queens Park Rangers star
- KJ Choi  – Professional golfer
- Yong-Eun Yang  – Professional golfer
- Chan-Ho Park  – ex-MLB pitcher
- YG Entertainment  - record label and talent agency for stars like PSY, Big Bang, 2NE1, G-Dragon, Lee Hi, Gummy, Se7en and Epik High
- KBS Symphony Orchestra
Incidents and accidents 
- On 26 July 1993, Asiana Airlines Flight 733, a Boeing 737–500 (HL7229) crashed in poor weather about 4 kilometres short of the runway in Mokpo while making its third landing attempt on runway 06 at Mokpo Airport. Two of the 6 crew members and 66 of the 110 passengers on board were killed.
- On 11 November 1998, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 747-400 attempting a U-Turn in the gate area of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport embedded its winglet into an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62M tail. No one was injured. Asiana was subsequently sued by Aeroflot. The Il-62M in this incident is now retired and is parked at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport with the Asiana winglet still embedded in its tail.
- On 19 August 2004, Asiana Airlines flight 204, a Boeing 747 flying into Los Angeles International Airport from Incheon, South Korea, had a near-collision with Southwest Airlines Flight 411, a Boeing 737, as a result of an air-traffic control error. The pilot of the Asiana flight aborted the landing, saving both planes.
- On 29 April 2009, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777, flight 271, flying between Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and Incheon Airport (ICN), with 179 passengers and 16 crew aboard made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from SEA after fire and smoke was seen coming from the left engine. The plane dumped fuel over Puget Sound before landing safely around 3:30 pm at Seatac. A compressor stall was later deemed to be the cause of the incident as of May 4, 2009.
- On 28 July 2011, Asiana Airlines Cargo Flight 991 bound for Shanghai Pudong Airport from Incheon Airport, operated by a Boeing 747-400F, crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Jeju Island, South Korea, after reporting a fire in the cargo compartment.
See also 
- Transport in South Korea
- List of companies of South Korea
- List of airlines of South Korea
- List of airports in South Korea
- List of Central, Far East, South, and Southwest airline holding companies
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- Asiana Airlines new colours
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- ISO 14000 essentials
- ATW's 2009 Airline of the Year
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- Asiana Airlines Fleet Age
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- Cha, Seonjin; Park, Kyunghee (28 July 2011). "Asiana Boeing 747 Freighter Crashes in South Korean Waters". Bloomberg.
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