It seems that South Korean airline T’Way Air is starting to accelerate its plans to serve Europe – while aiding Asiana Airlines and Korean Air in the process.
T’Way Air’s first European destination will be Zagreb, Croatia. The airline plans to serve the Croatian capital three times a week from the 16th of May. The planned timetable is below:
| Route | Flight No. | Depart | Technical stop (Bishkek ) | Arrival | Operating days |
| Incheon-Bishkek-Zagreb | TW505 | 11:05 | 15:30 | 19:25 | Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays |
| Zagreb to Incheon | TW506 | 20:55 | 14:50+1 | Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays |
Notably, T’Way will make a technical stop in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) for an hour to refuel the aircraft. The return segment is director Seoul Incheon. Thus, the outbound flight will take 15 hours in total, whilst the inbound is an 11-hour jaunt.
T’Way will operate an Airbus A330 on this route, with 12 Business Class and 247 economy class seats – similar to what it utilises for its Sydney route.
Lead-in fares have been announced, with Event fares starting at 461,000 won (~USD$345.37, €321.13) and Smart fares starting at 581,000 won ( USD$435.24, €404.80).
In Quotes
A T’way Air official said,
“This is the first flight to Europe between Korea and Croatia. We expect that tourism and business exchanges between the two countries will become more active.” We will put flight first, and increase customer satisfaction through reasonable fares and services.”
Sweetening the way for the Korean Air/Asiana merger
Whilst T’way Air has added to its fleet, we have to move to the interesting bit of this – the timing. Korean Air and Asian Airlines have been pursuing a merger for some time, with the European Commission weighing in on the conditions of allowing the merger to continue – with the reduction in competition.
As part of the proposed remedies, Korean Air offered the following remedies to the European Commission:
- Cargo commitments: Korean Air will divest Asiana’s global cargo freighter business. The divestment includes freighter aircraft, slots, traffic rights, flight crew, and other employees, as well as customer cargo contracts, among others. Korean Air can only implement the acquisition of Asiana following the Commission’s approval of a suitable buyer for the cargo divestment. Among other requirements, the buyer must be able and have the incentives to operate the divested business in a viable manner and to compete effectively with the merged company.
- Passenger commitments: Korean Air will make available to rival airline T’Way the necessary assets to enable it to start flight operations on the four overlap routes. The assets include slots and traffic rights as well as access to the required aircraft. Korean Air has committed not to complete the merger until T’Way has started operating on the four overlap routes.
The routes that have been highlighted are between Seoul and Barcelona, Paris, Frankfurt, and Rome.
It seems that Zagreb will be a “dry run” for T’Way Air, as it seeks to understand the European market as it understands how it operates, compared to its other medium to long-distance operations it may have flown.
We’ll have to see how the bigger network will grow in the future – suffice to say, the A330 might not be the aircraft to operate the route on…
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