Asiana Airlines to Eliminate All First-Class Seats

Asiana Airlines, which is up for sale in the M&A market, will remove all first-class seats beginning this September to improve its profitability.

Asiana Airlines announced on May 7 that it will stop operating first-class sections in six A380 airplanes and convert them into business suite sections starting on Sept. 1.

The airliner will not remodel first-class seats; it will offer them as business suite seats and provide passengers with business-class services. Fares for business suite seats will be 30 percent to 40 percent cheaper than those for first-class seats.

To improve profitability, Asiana Airlines removed first-class seats from most of its planes in 2017. Currently, of its 85 airplanes, first-class sections remain at six A380 airplanes mainly for long-haul flights only.

Asiana Airlines has also made some adjustments to its plan to suspend routes. Flights from Incheon to Khabarovsk, Sakhalin and Delhi will be discontinued starting on July 8. Initially, the Incheon-Khabarovsk and Incheon-Sakhalin routes were scheduled to stop this September but the company decided to suspend them early after adding the Incheon to Delhi route to the list.

"As for passengers who already reserved tickets for the routes to be suspended, we are planning to let them change their seat reservations and itineraries, give them refunds, provide them with tickets to use other airliners’ services shortly before the start of the suspension,” an Asiana Airlines official said.