Asiana to halt San Francisco route for 45 days from March next year

Published : Oct 25, 2019 - 13:47 Updated : Oct 25, 2019 - 13:47

Asiana Airlines Inc. will suspend the Incheon-San Francisco route for 45 days from March 1 following a Seoul court's ruling over its deadly crash landing in the US city five years ago, the transport ministry said Friday.

(Yonhap)

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's 45-day suspension order on the San Francisco route in penalty for the accident.

Flights on the route will be halted from March 1 through April 14, the ministry said in a statement.

The 45-day suspension is expected to cause a loss of 11 billion won ($9.3 million) in sales, but the planes bound for San Francisco will be used on other routes to reduce the impact on its annual bottom line, Asiana said.

In July 2013, an Asiana B777 crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport, killing three and injuring 49 out of 307 passengers.

US investigators determined that a contributing factor was the pilots' mistakes in monitoring airspeed and undue reliance on automated systems that they didn't understand.

In 2014, the ministry ordered Asiana to suspend its flights to San Francisco for 45 days as punishment for the crash.

But Asiana immediately appealed the decision, saying any suspension would cause serious passenger inconvenience given high demand on the route. (Yonhap)