South Korean hybrid airline Air Premia is celebrating its second anniversary of service to Los Angeles today.
From October 2022 to September 2024, Air Premia operated a total of 1,171 flights, transporting 317,531 passengers and recording a passenger share of 13.5%, the airline announced on October 21.
The number of passengers traveling on national carriers on the Los Angeles route has also increased with the addition of Air Premia’s service.
In 2019, before the pandemic, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines had 1,036,625 passengers on their LA routes, according to the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport’s aviation information portal.
With the launch of Air Premia, the number of passengers on the three Korean national carriers increased to 1,066,061 by September last year, and then to 1,286,066 from October last year to September this year, an increase of 20.6%.
Air Premia itself credits the service with contributing to the revitalization of travel in the LA area by creating new demand while lowering the barrier to entry for long-distance travel at an affordable price.
Air Premia plans to launch new U.S. routes and expand existing routes, including LA, by the time the 9th aircraft is introduced in the second half of next year.
“If we have shown our competitiveness in the long-haul market so far, we look forward to becoming a major player in the market by diversifying our routes and offering a variety of schedules from next year,” said Brian Kim, Air Premia’s Director of Operations in LA.
To celebrate its second anniversary of service to LA, the airline is offering discounts on its LA and San Francisco routes to Seoul, Korea until October 29.
When booking tickets through airpremia.com, customers can save 15% on LA fares by entering “LAX2YEAR” as the promo code and 10% on San Francisco fares by entering “SFOOCT”.
Tickets are valid for flights traveling through the end of August next year.
BY NAKI PARK, HOONSIK WOO [park.naki@koreadaily.com]
