Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL), and Korean Air today filed a joint application for antitrust immunity with the U.S. Department of Transportation that will allow the two carriers to expand their current marketing agreements and develop a coordinated approach to sales and marketing programs.
When approved by the DOT, the carriers will be able to cooperate in the operation of their transpacific route systems on a broad network-to-network basis to improve the quality and competitiveness of the services they offer to customers, while retaining their separate corporate and national identities.
With antitrust immunity, the two carriers will expand their existing codeshare operations through a coordinated approach to schedules and routes and network planning. The proposed arrangement will allow the carriers to generate efficiencies and provide improved services to customers through coordinated marketing and sales programs, service standards and procedures, advertising and media programs, and cargo programs and operations.
The immunized alliance will be pro-consumer, pro-competitive and consistent with established U.S. aviation policy. Linking Delta’s U.S. hubs with Korean Air’s Incheon hub will expand the U.S.-Asian networks for the two carriers, providing customers with more travel opportunities. The alliance will produce cost efficiencies and savings, through the integration and coordination of services that can be passed on to consumers in the form of improved service and access to lower fares. It will also offer consumers expanded access to destinations beyond the gateway cities of each of the carriers’ hubs, while increasing transpacific competition by allowing Delta and Korean Air to better compete on equal terms with the networks of rival global alliances.
The granting of antitrust immunity to Delta and Korean Air by DOT, when combined with the antitrust immunity granted to Delta, Air France, Alitalia and CSA Czech Airlines in January, will allow for the expansion of the ongoing relationship of the entire immunized alliance. The SkyTeam alliance - which includes Aeromexico, Air France, Alitalia, Delta, CSA Czech and Korean Air - will continue to provide worldwide airline passengers with a new standard of service as they travel on more than 8,000 daily flights throughout the alliance’s extensive route system. Delta and Korean Air announced on Feb. 15, that they would resume offering reciprocal codeshare service on a number of transpacific flights operated between the United States and Korea.
Beginning May 1, Delta will start codesharing on Korean Air flights from New York (JFK), Los Angeles, Washington (Dulles), Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago and San Francisco to Seoul (Incheon), South Korea. Within Korea, Delta will codeshare on flights to Pusan.  Effective May 21, when Korean Air inaugurates nonstop Incheon to Atlanta service, Delta will add its code to these flights.
Korean Air, with a fleet of 120 aircraft, is one of the world`s top 20 airlines and operates almost 400 passenger flights per day to 80 cities in 30 countries. More on Korean Air`s programs, routes, frequency and partners is available at www.koreanair.com.
Delta Air Lines, the world’s second largest carrier in terms of passengers carried and the leading U.S. airline across the Atlantic, offers 5,987 flights each day to 418 destinations in 73 countries on Delta, Delta Express, Delta Shuttle, Delta Connection carriers and Delta’s worldwide partners. Delta is a founding member of SkyTeam, a global airline alliance that provides customers with extensive worldwide destinations, flights and services. For more information, please go to www.delta.com.
——-