Korean Air Chairman Cho Won-tae joins Korean Air staff members in disinfecting an inside of the airliner’s aircraft.

Korean Air suffered a 56.6 billion won operating loss in the first quarter of this year due to its sagging business, buffeted by the spread of COVID-19.

Amid the unprecedented crisis, executives and staff with the Korean national flag carrier had been devoting themselves to attracting cargo and enhancing transportation efficiency day and night.

Flight crew had to wear face masks and protective clothes during long-haul flights to ensure safety.

Korean Air executives and staff efforts paid off. Even though international passenger flight routes had almost ground to a halt due to the pandemic, Korean Air reversed course to log 148.5 billion won in the second quarter in what was seen as an earnings surprise, equivalent to eight times market consensus.

Provisional figures, officially released by Korean Air on Aug. 6, showed that the airliner posted 1.69 trillion won in sales in Q2, a 44 percent plunge from the same period last year.

The reason was that Korean Air saw the number of passengers handled nosedive 92.2 percent in Q2 over the same period. Instead, the company focused on transporting cargo, and passenger craft also carried cargo.

Korean Air managed to post 148.5 billion won in Q2 operating profit. It was a reversal of course in one quarter after the airliner suffered a setback by posting an operating loss in the first quarter.

Korean Air’s Q2 operating profit was 130.4 billion won more than market consensus, which averaged 18.1 billion won. Korean Air was the sole airline which recorded an operating profit among major global airliners who announced Q2 earnings.

Global airline juggernauts dramatically reduced cargo flights for retrenchment, but Korean Air focused on cargo flights.

The way Korean Air thinks out of the box under the stewardship of Korean Air Chairman Cho Won-tae has led to the airliner chalking up an operating profit in Q2, industry analysts said.

Korean Air said the airliner saw cargo transportation business surge 17 percent compared to the same period last year.

The figure is a sharp contrast to major global airliners who plunged 30 percent to 40 percent in the cargo transportation business.

Air saw sales in Q2 cargo business surge to 1.225.9 trillion won, a 94.6 percent jump over the same period one year ago when it posted 596 billion won.

According to aviation business sources, demand and supply of the global aviation cargo market declined about 15 percent and 23 percent, respectively, in the first half of this year.

A more drop in supply than demand prompted a rise in cargo rates. A freight rate on the Hong Kong-North American route soared to $8 per kg in May, a two- and three-fold compared to the same period one year ago.

A Korean Air official said Korean Air’s investing into the latest advanced cargo freighters despite the recession of the aviation cargo market lasting a few decades had played a leading role, and a strategy of using passenger aircraft as freighters also worked.

A view of cargo being loaded into Korean Air A330 passenger flight. (Photos: Korean Air)