Korean Air plans US$3.3b asset sale to cut debt

Korean Air said Thursday it would sell off assets valued at 3.5 trillion won (US$3.3 billion) to reduce its burgeoning debt pile and improve its financial structure.

South Korea's biggest airline vowed to halve its 800 per cent debt to assets ratio by 2015, after it suffered snowballing debts stemming mainly from the purchase of new planes.

Korean Air said it would sell shares worth 2.2 trillion won in S-Oil Corp, a joint venture controlled by Saudi Arabia's Aramco.

It will also gain 1.3 trillion won by selling real estate, assets and 13 old planes in the next two years.

However, the company said it would go ahead with the planned purchase of about 10 new planes every year.

Korean Air posted a third quarter net profit of 342 billion won, down 1.0 per cent from a year ago on a decline in passenger traffic.

It said it would provide additional support for its troubled sister firm Hanjin Shipping.

In October, Korean Air injected 150 billion won into the shipping line. Hanjin Shipping also promised to liquidate non-core businesses and sell unused assets.

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S Korean airlines ban shark fin as cargo

South Korea's two largest airlines, Korean Air and Asiana, said on Thursday they had both decided to ban shark fin from their cargo flights as part of a growing global campaign against the Asian delicacy.

Korean Air, which flies to 45 countries, said in a statement that it had stopped shipping shark fin from June 10.

"Korean Air has joined a campaign to protect an ecological system by imposing a complete ban on the shipment of shark fin," the statement said.

Asiana, the country's second largest airline, said it was following suit.

"Our airline has decided to stop shipping shark fin," an Asiana spokeswoman told AFP, without saying when the ban would be enforced.

Shark fin soup is served by many hotels and Chinese restaurants in South Korea and is a staple at wedding banquets and corporate parties.

Global shark populations have been decimated by the trade. Humans kill about 100 million sharks each year, mostly for their fins, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which says 90 per cent have disappeared over the past 100 years.

The move brings Korean Air and Asiana into line with a number of other Asian carriers, including Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific which stopped shipping shark fin as cargo last September.

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A piece of news that will affect our stomachs. With  Cathay Pacific Cargo also banning such imports, it is left with only a selected few cargo airlines flying the fins around for people's consumption, no pun intended. If the figures are to be believed, 90% disappearance of sharks in the past decade is an alarming figure. Perhaps it will be good that the rest of the cargo airlines will follow suit and ban flying the fins within their fuselage.