With two new 747-400Fs recently ordered for delivery next year and a wet lease for another signed with Atlas Air, Korean appears ready for a new start. An improving Korean economy can only help, of course, and exports have gathered momentum. KAL reports a 21 percent increase in export tonnage this year so far.
Korean exports are much stronger than a year or two ago.
Indeed, KAL and others are trying to clear backlogs that have piled up in Seoul, a situation that seemed unthinkable a year ago. The freighter that KAL is leasing from Atlas is deployed on transpacific runs, which adds four weekly freighter flights to the United States. But this is still below demand for eastbound capacity. In fact, Boeing will be busy in coming months converting Korean s last two MD-11 passenger aircraft into freighters. It s the kind of optimism KAL wants to focus on after a year that saw the fatal crash of an MD-11 freighter in China, one of several incidents that caused the airline to confront its training and safety record.