Foreign LCCs line up for JVs in South Korea as aviation market changes

As liberalisation and more progressive thinking spreads across North Asia, the region's pan-Asian LCCs are looking at how to have a local presence in South Korea. While South Korea in the middle of last decade became the first North Asian country to see the launch of LCCs, there has been stagnation at the expense of cost bases, creating room for a new LCC with a lower cost base to enter. An effort in 2008 from Tiger Airways to establish Tiger Incheon backfired, which, combined with weak performances at some incumbents, has caused foreign LCC groups to look at acquiring an existing carrier.

AirAsia is understood to have looked but left, leaving Tiger as most likely Asian LCC group to enter the South Korean market because Jetstar is now bedding down growth elsewhere and following from its Vietnam experience does not take a positive view towards acquiring another carrier. Indeed, global examples of LCC mergers are few, but this may be the platform necessary for South Korea.

It has no domestic market like Japan but a thriving international market with surprising numbers of liberalised air services, the spark to generate growth. Whether an acquisition pans out or not, South Korean aviation is in need of a shake-up.