By 2030, 500 overhauls a year. 5 trillion won in revenue.
This is the engine MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) institutional sector business target that Korean Air Lines disclosed when it opened the construction site of its engine maintenance plant in the Unbuk district on Yeongjongdo on the 15th.
The Unbuk new plant is an integrated MRO base that Korean Air Lines has been building since 2024 with a total investment of 578 billion won. Its area alone is equivalent to 20 soccer fields.
When the plant is completed in Oct. this year, the disassembly, repair and assembly functions dispersed in Bucheon will be transferred here, and operations will begin in 2027.
A "one-stop service" system will be established to carry out, in one place, everything from unloading engines that need MRO to disassembly, cleaning, repair, inspection, assembly, testing and shipment.
As the workshop area will increase more than fivefold, the annual maintenance volume will be raised from 130 units to more than 500, and the number of engines that can be serviced will be increased from six types to 12.
Currently, the engines that Korean Air Lines can perform MRO on are four PW models, one CFM model and one GE model. To this, it plans to add three GE models, one CFM model and two Rolls-Royce models.
Based on these capabilities, the company aims to target a market worth $78.6 billion (about 110 trillion won) annually and boost revenue from about 1.3 trillion won this year to 5 trillion won by 2030, leaping into the world's top 10 engine MRO companies.
Kim Gwang-eun, head of the engine maintenance plant (executive director), said, "About 1 trillion won will be invested in plant construction and securing engine maintenance capacity," and added, "Through this, we will actively attract outside work to make up 65% of the total."
Of Korean Air Lines' total engine MRO workload this year (116 units), 28 units (24%) are third-party orders. The plan is to raise this to about 330 units a year to generate 3.3 trillion won in external sales.
Korean Air Lines' strategy is to attract demand from domestic low-cost carriers (LCCs) and neighboring-country airlines that currently outsource engine MRO to China, Singapore and the United States. Kim said, "Given that engine transport alone costs hundreds of millions of won per unit, competitiveness will be sufficient."
Korean Air Lines' new plant is also a move to prepare for the period after integration with Asiana Airlines. By internalizing engine maintenance, the company aims to enhance efficiency while supporting a larger fleet to strengthen operational safety.
Korean Air Lines' fleet currently numbers 165 aircraft, and Asiana Airlines' fleet numbers 68. Considering the additional aircraft that Korean Air Lines is introducing, the fleet size will increase to a little over 300.
To that end, the company is also pursuing the development of MRO capability for the CFM LEAP-1A engine, one of Asiana Airlines' mainstay engines.
Accordingly, the workforce is also being expanded. Starting this year, more than 150 mechanics will be hired annually, and staff will be added in sales and materials management, with plans to increase the current 558 employees to 1,300 by 2030.
Korean Air Lines is also strengthening the training capacity of its flight training center to maintain operational safety after integration. Opened in 2016, the flight training center is where pilots can conduct training and practice for flight situations.
Since Apr. this year, the company has operated a "basic training for integrated airline flight crew" program to unify the training system, and it is also establishing a new training center in preparation for the larger fleet after integration.
The new training center will be established as the largest in Asia within the Korean Air Lines Future Air Mobility (UAM) & aviation safety research and development center in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.
Through this, the number of full flight simulators will be expanded to up to 30, enabling training for more than 20,000 domestic and foreign pilots annually.
Korean Air Lines expects to generate additional revenue not only from training pilots for the integrated airline but also by lending equipment for training by external airlines.
A Korean Air Lines official said, "Through the flight training center, we will leap forward as a global-standard airline with world-class pilot training and certification systems."