Korean Air is the name of the national airline of South Korea. The airline is headquartered in Gonghang-dong, Gangseo-gu in Seoul. The airline was established in 1962, replacing the Korean National Airlines was founded in 1948 when the Korean independence from Japanese colonial rule. Initially, the airline is owned by the South Korean government. However, the airline was privatized in 1969 and became part of the Hanjin Group. Inaugural international flight conducted on 26 April 1971 (cargo). While the inaugural international flight passengers carried one year later, on 19 April 1972 with the Seoul-Los Angeles route. Boeing 707 aircraft used in international routes such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Los Angeles to buy KAL Boeing 747 in 1973. Asian routes serviced by Airbus A300 aircraft purchased in 1975.
On March 1, 1984 KAL livery introduced (new style) in blue – gray (blue in the upper body and gray on the belly) with a new logo “Korean Air” with the symbol “taegukki”, replacing the name “Korean Air Lines “. In 1970 to 1999. Korean Air has a lot of fatal accidents (about 16 KAL plane crashed at this time, the worst among others, Korean Air Flight 007) that has a bad image at that time, which greatly affects the performance of the airline.
But after that the level of aviation safety improved and the airline became one of the safest airlines in the world with the image the better (although the bad image “is often an accident” is still felt to this day) Korean Air is one of the few airlines with a four star rating from Skytrax (some of the other four-star airline is Japan Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Thai Airways International, Turkish Airlines, and South African Airways). The main competitor airline is Asiana Airlines, which is a bit of airlines with five star rating, also from Skytrax.