"Reduce Seats" Demand Leads to Evidence Destruction...KFTC to Refer Korean Air and Employees to Prosecutors

Unauthorized Deletion of Emails Detected During Investigation
Full Rejection Recommended for Request to Ease Seat Supply Obligations

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has decided to file a criminal complaint with prosecutors against both Korean Air as a corporate entity and certain employees, after discovering that evidence was deliberately deleted during its review of the company's compliance with corrective orders related to the merger between Korean Air and Asiana Airlines. At the same time, the KFTC has rejected in full a request from Korean Air for an exemption from the obligation to maintain the number of operating seats, which the airline had requested due to a surge in oil prices and a decrease in passenger demand.

Korean Air aircraft moving on the tarmac at Gimpo Airport. Photo by Yonhap News.

On September 10, the KFTC’s Secretariat announced that it had denied two requests to amend corrective orders submitted by five air carriers, including Korean Air, and had submitted to the full commission an examination report (equivalent to a prosecutorial indictment) recommending that the company and its employees be prosecuted for obstruction of the investigation during onsite inspections. The parties subject to this review include Korean Air Co., Ltd. as well as Jin Air, Asiana Airlines, Air Busan, and Air Seoul, for a total of five companies.

The incident began when Korean Air requested a relaxation of its obligation to maintain seat capacity. In December 2024, the KFTC finalized changes to its merger remedies, mandating that the supply of seats on all 40 affected routes could not fall below 90 percent of 2019 levels, as a measure to prevent consumer harm. However, Korean Air cited unavoidable external factors and requested that the seat maintenance obligation on the Cheongju–Jeju route be relaxed to 70 percent of 2019 levels.

To assess the validity of this request, the KFTC Secretariat conducted an onsite inspection at Korean Air’s headquarters in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, from February 2 to 6 of this year. During that process, serious legal violations were uncovered: three Korean Air employees unlawfully deleted work-related computer files and emails directly tied to the investigation between February 2 and 4, during the onsite review. The KFTC examiner identified this as a clear case of investigation obstruction and specified, in accordance with Article 125, Section 7 of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, that both the Korean Air corporation and the three employees should face criminal prosecution. This statute stipulates imprisonment of up to two years or a fine of up to 150 million won for concealing or destroying materials during an investigation.

Requests from Korean Air for an easing of corrective orders were also found to be groundless. The examiner rejected the request regarding the Cheongju–Jeju route, determining that there had been no new developments after December 24, 2024, that would make compliance with the finalized corrective order more difficult. In a separate request, Korean Air sought to exempt or relax the 2026 seat maintenance obligation for all routes, citing surges in oil prices and exchange rates following the outbreak of the Middle East war, but this too was denied. Based on an estimated projection of 2026 passenger demand for each route drawn from ticketing data, the KFTC found that, despite external uncertainties, there were no signs of an overall contraction in demand across the routes.

The KFTC has formally sent the examination report to the parties under review and, following procedures to guarantee defense rights such as submission of written opinions and review of evidence, plans to hold a full commission meeting to finalize its determination on whether laws were violated and the appropriate level of sanctions.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.