Airlines/South Korea
Is Korean Air safe?
Dramatically improved safety since the late 1990s. No fatal accidents in over 25 years.
A modelled estimate and protected opinion, not a factual safety verdict. Informational only, not safety or travel advice, provided as-is. See our terms & disclaimer.
Operator safety tier
Elite
Modelled fatal-accident risk on the order of 1 in 11 million flights.
A model estimate from validated signals (the dominant factor in a flight's safety), not a measurement of this airline's own flight history. IOSA-registered; last fatal accident 1999 (27y ago). Full methodology.
Safety signals
Fleet
Counting every airframe we hold for this airline's code, which is more than the fleet figure in our carrier data (169). The table below lists them.
The actual aircraft in Korean Air's fleet
Individual airframes we hold for Korean Air, with build years taken from public registries and sourced references. These are the specific aircraft you might be boarding, not an industry average. Where we cannot date enough of a subfleet we leave the age blank rather than estimate it.
| Aircraft | In our registry | Average age | Built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 777-300ER | 25 | 12.2 yrs | 2009 to 2019 |
| Airbus A330-300 | 22 | 22.5 yrs | 1997 to 2015 |
| Boeing 737-900 | 20 | 20.7 yrs | 2001 to 2013 |
| Boeing 747-8 | 16 | 11.4 yrs | 2012 to 2017 |
| Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner | 14 | 7.8 yrs | 2017 to 2021 |
| Boeing 777-200 / 200ER | 13 | 23.1 yrs | 1997 to 2008 |
| Boeing 777-200LR / 777F | 12 | 11.3 yrs | 2012 to 2017 |
| Airbus A321neo | 12 | 3.1 yrs | 2022 to 2024 |
| Airbus A380-800 | 10 | 14.1 yrs | 2011 to 2014 |
| Airbus A330-200 | 8 | 20 yrs | 1998 to 2013 |
| Airbus A220-300 | 7 | not enough dated | — |
| Boeing 737 MAX 8 | 5 | 7.2 yrs | 2019 |
We can date 25 of the 25 Boeing 777-300ER airframes we hold for Korean Air. They average 12.2 years old, built between 2009 and 2019.