Korean Air (KE, Seoul Incheon) took delivery of its first B737-8 on February 13, 2022, and plans to begin the type's revenue operations on March 1.
HL8348 (msn 63436) was ferried from Seattle Boeing Field to Seoul Incheon via Anchorage Ted Stevens and Tokyo Narita, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows. It is configured with up to 146 seats, including eight in business class and 138 in economy.
The airline stressed that the aircraft was delivered after a detailed safety review. South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) intends to set up a special supervisory panel to provide support to Korean Air and all other MAX operators in the country. The regulator only ungrounded the type in November 2021.
"We have sent our mechanics to other overseas airlines that already operate the aircraft and adapted our own maintenance manual for training so that our team can perform standardized maintenance under any circumstances. We have also updated the flight operation manuals to prepare against all possible situations during flight, and have conducted pilot training for these situations using our own B737-8 simulators," Korean Air said.
Korean Air plans to take a total of six B737-8s in 2022, of which one will be operated by LCC subsidiary Jin Air (LJ, Jeju). In total, the group has thirty B737-8s due from Boeing (BOE, Washington National).
LCC Eastar Jet (ZE, Seoul Gimpo) operated two B737-8s prior to the type's global grounding in March 2019 but decided to return them to their lessor as part of its ongoing restructuring. Jeju Air (7C, Jeju) has a firm order for forty units but has yet to take any of them.
