Korean Air and Asiana Airlines Sweep the Top Three Spots in Fair Trade Commission Fines Over the Past Four Years

[Financial News] Korean Air and Asiana Airlines have been found to have received the largest enforcement fines over the past four years. The fines resulted from repeated violations of the conditions attached to approval of their business combination. The enforcement fines imposed on the two airlines alone exceeded 18.5 billion won.
According to the Fair Trade Commission's list of the top 30 companies by administrative fines imposed from 2023 through August 2026, including enforcement fines, which was submitted to Hong Bae Park, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, Asiana Airlines ranked first overall after being fined 12,104,500,000 won in July last year.
Korean Air was fined 5,885,600,000 won in December of the same year, placing second, while Asiana Airlines received an additional fine of 588,500,000 won, ranking third.
The enforcement fines imposed on the two airlines totaled 18,578,600,000 won. They accounted for most of the 20,032,170,000 won in administrative fines imposed on all companies last year.
The enforcement fines stemmed from corrective measures imposed when the Fair Trade Commission approved the business combination of Korean Air and Asiana Airlines. To prevent consumer harm, such as fare increases or reductions in seat supply resulting from the merger's increased market dominance, the commission placed restrictions on fares and seat capacity.
Specifically, fares could not be raised beyond the level calculated by applying the inflation rate to average fares in 2019. Airlines were also required to maintain route-level seat capacity at no less than 90% of 2019 levels.
However, during the first compliance period, the first quarter of 2025, Asiana Airlines exceeded the fare-increase limits by 1.3% to 28.2% on four of more than 30 routes: Incheon–Barcelona, Incheon–Frankfurt am Main, Incheon–Rome, and Gwangju–Jeju Province. Asiana Airlines was found to have charged approximately 680 million won in excess fares.
The airlines also violated the seat-supply requirement. Korean Air and Asiana Airlines were found to have supplied only 69.5% of the seats provided during the same period in 2019 on the Incheon–Frankfurt am Main route from December 2024 through March 2025. The Fair Trade Commission imposed enforcement fines on both airlines last December over the violation.
The possibility of additional sanctions remains. Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, and Jin Air are currently subject to the Fair Trade Commission's sanctions process over allegations that they supplied less than 90% of the 2019 seat capacity on the Cheongju–Jeju Province route from December 2024 through last December.
A request to ease the seat-supply requirement is also pending before the Fair Trade Commission's adjudicatory panel. Five airlines—Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Jin Air, Air Busan, and Air Seoul—asked the commission to lower the required seat capacity from 90% to 70% of 2019 levels, citing reduced demand on the Incheon–Guam and Busan–Guam routes.
However, the Fair Trade Commission examiner submitted a review report recommending dismissal to the commission, saying the circumstances could not be regarded as serious or unavoidable.
[email protected] Chan-mi Kim Reporter