Korean Air Lines celebrates 50 years of flying to the U.S.

Industry

Published: 19 Apr. 2022, 18:51

Korean Air Lines celebrates 50 years of flying to the U.S.

Korean Air Lines' Boeing 707 prepares its first flight to the United States on April 19, 1972. [KOREAN AIR LINES]

Korean Air Lines commemorates its 50-year anniversary of flying to the United States on Tuesday.

Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, presented a mayoral proclamation to Korean Air Lines on Monday and thanked the carrier for its service.

The carrier first flew to the United States when it took off for Los Angeles on April 19, 1972, making stops in Tokyo and Hawaii.

Hawaii and Los Angeles were its only two destinations in the United States back then, but it has since expanded to 13 U.S. cities as of 2019, before the pandemic. The carrier transported 43,800 passengers to and from the countries in 1972, rising by 6,749 percent to 3 million in 2019.

A one-way flight from Gimpo International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport took 17 hours in 1972, but now takes just 11 hours. The airline says it has created 100,000 jobs in the United States over the past 50 years.

“As a proud joint venture partner, we want to congratulate Korean Air Lines on the significant milestone of connecting the United States and Korea for a half-century,” said Matteo Curcio, Delta Air Lines vice president of Asia Pacific. “We look forward to working together to seamlessly connect even more customers between the Americas and Asia via our Incheon hub for years to come.”

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]