PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are calculated in-house from the last 4 quarters (2025Q3–2026Q2) · Dividend yield is based on ₩0 per share · Prices as of the 2026-10-02 close
With losses persisting after the freighter business sale and amid high fuel prices and a weak won, the stock and corporate value are effectively tied to the December 2026 merger with Korean Air and its fixed exchange ratio.
Korean Air is absorbing Asiana Airlines at a ratio of 0.2736432 Korean Air shares per Asiana share, with a merger date of December 16, 2026 and new shares slated to list on January 4, 2027.
MOLIT conditionally approved the merger on June 25, 2026, and Asiana's extraordinary shareholder meeting approved the merger agreement on August 12.
On a consolidated basis, operating profit turned negative for full-year 2025, and operating losses have continued for four straight quarters from Q3 2025 through Q2 2026.
The company says the cargo revenue gap has been large since the August 2025 freighter division sale, while the passenger unit grew on higher load factors and unit revenue.
The mileage integration plan is still under Korea Fair Trade Commission review, and if it is not approved by the merger date the two programs may be run separately.
Asiana Airlines is a full-service carrier centered on international passenger and air cargo operations, with aviation affiliates including low-cost carriers among its subsidiaries. The biggest structural change has been the sale of its freighter division.
Q2 2026 cargo revenue was KRW 114.7 billion, down KRW 256.5 billion year on year, reflecting the August 2025 sale of the freighter division to Air Zeta (company announcement of August 13, 2026, separate-entity basis). Passenger operations, by contrast, kept recovering.
In the same release, passenger revenue was KRW 1.2809 trillion, up KRW 163.3 billion or 14.6% year on year; although capacity fell 2% on heavy maintenance scheduling, the load factor rose 5 percentage points and passenger unit revenue improved 10% on expanded connecting sales, the company said.
The freighter sale hit more than direct cargo sales: it also reduced belly-cargo revenue carried in passenger aircraft holds, and the shrinking cargo network and sales base dragged on overall profitability despite passenger growth. Ownership is already that of a Korean Air subsidiary.
Korean Air paid a total of roughly KRW 1.5 trillion, including an KRW 800 billion final installment in December 2024, to acquire a 63.88% stake in Asiana. Airport operations have also been realigned toward integration.
Asiana moved from Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 for flights departing and arriving from January 14, 2026. On the alliance front, Asiana formally leaves Star Alliance as of 11:59 p.m. Korea time on December 16, 2026.
Competitively, the Korean Air combination consolidates the domestic full-service axis into one carrier, while short-haul routes remain contested by low-cost carriers.
| Quarter | Revenue | Operating profit | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025Q2 | ₩1.9T | -₩6.9B | −0.4% |
| 2025Q3 | ₩1.7T | -₩197.7B | −11.8% |
| 2025Q4 | ₩1.6T | -₩196B | −12.1% |
| 2026Q1 | ₩1.7T | -₩52.4B | −3.1% |
| 2026Q2 | ₩1.8T | -₩356.3B | −19.3% |
| Year | Revenue | Operating profit | Net income (parent) | Op. margin | ROE | Debt-to-equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ₩6.2T | ₩598.8B | ₩110.4B | 9.6% | 16.0% | 1780.2% |
| 2023 | ₩7.6T | ₩619.9B | ₩113.9B | 8.1% | 16.8% | 1506.3% |
| 2024 | ₩8.3T | ₩275.7B | -₩419.2B | 3.3% | −46.8% | 1240.8% |
| 2025 | ₩7.3T | -₩345.2B | -₩283B | −4.8% | −37.9% | 1370.2% |
Consolidated basis (financial statements including subsidiaries) · Final figures from DART filings · Net income attributable to owners of the parent · Data as of 2026-09-04
Annually, revenue rose from KRW 6.2067 trillion in 2022 to KRW 7.6233 trillion in 2023 and KRW 8.3186 trillion in 2024, then fell to KRW 7.2668 trillion in 2025. Profitability deteriorated more sharply.
Operating profit narrowed from KRW 598.8 billion in 2022 (9.6% margin) to KRW 619.9 billion in 2023 (8.1%) and KRW 275.7 billion in 2024 (3.3%), before swinging to an operating loss of KRW 345.2 billion in 2025 (-4.8%).
Net profit attributable to owners also moved from KRW 110.4 billion in 2022 and KRW 113.9 billion in 2023 to net losses of KRW 419.2 billion in 2024 and KRW 283.0 billion in 2025. The quarterly path shows how persistent the losses are.
From revenue of KRW 1.8870 trillion and an operating loss of KRW 6.9 billion in Q2 2025, operating losses ran KRW 197.7 billion in Q3 2025, KRW 196.0 billion in Q4, KRW 52.4 billion in Q1 2026 and KRW 356.3 billion in Q2 2026, four consecutive quarters in the red.
Q2 2026 revenue of KRW 1.8441 trillion topped the prior quarter's KRW 1.6804 trillion, yet the operating loss was the widest of the run and the net loss attributable to owners widened to KRW 372.1 billion.
In its separate-basis release the company cited the surge in fuel prices and the exchange rate tied to Middle East conflict, the August 2025 freighter division sale, and costs for Korean Air integration preparation and customer service upgrades, noting the quarter-end won-dollar rate of KRW 1,542, up KRW 107 from end-2025.
The balance sheet remains strained: end-2025 total liabilities were KRW 11.3586 trillion against total equity of KRW 829.0 billion, a debt-to-equity ratio of 1,370.2%, while operating cash flow fell sharply from KRW 1.4583 trillion in 2024 to KRW 137.0 billion in 2025.
Korea's 2026 airline cycle has been one of growing demand but costs eating into profit. First-half total passengers reached about 49.3 million, up roughly 8% from about 45.5 million a year earlier, yet volumes slid after a January peak of 8.87 million to 7.57 million in June, below the prior-year June figure.
International traffic, the more profitable segment, fell 15.1% from 6.26 million in January to 5.31 million in June. On the cost side, fuel and currency moved together.
Mirae Asset Securities noted in June 2026 that jet fuel had fallen 43% from its peak to USD 127.5 per barrel at end-May but rebounded to USD 140.5 as of June 7, roughly 1.7 times the level at the start of the year, while the won-dollar rate rose from a May average of KRW 1,489 to KRW 1,531 in June.
In the same note Mirae Asset kept a Neutral rating on the airline sector, judging that fuel surcharge and currency burdens were slowing passenger demand and that hopes for a July-August rebound were limited.
The currency sensitivity is structural: roughly 70% of Korean carriers' main operating costs are paid in dollars. Demand forecasts still point up. IATA projected global passenger demand (RPK) to rise 4.9% in 2026, with Asia-Pacific leading the recovery at around 7% growth.
Competitively, with freighter capacity divested, Asiana captures less of any cargo upcycle, leaving passenger unit revenue and execution of the integration process as the main earnings drivers.
Management's stated direction is second-half improvement. Asiana said results should improve from the third quarter as fuel prices and the exchange rate settle and the summer peak season takes hold.
On routes, it plans to strengthen profitability around Japan, converting the Kobe route to scheduled service from September and doubling Fukuoka to twice daily.
Cargo strategy now centers on belly capacity: the company expects the traditional cargo peak from late in the third quarter plus firm demand for high-value goods such as semiconductor and AI-related industrial cargo, and says it will secure key shippers' volumes early and focus on high-yield peak-season freight.
The larger swing factor, however, is the integration timetable rather than quarterly results.
The two carriers plan to file the merger registration on December 17 after completing creditor-protection and other procedures, and Korean Air is running final checks including job training for Asiana passenger and cargo staff.
On post-merger scale, Korean Air has guided to passenger capacity up more than 55% and cargo capacity up more than 10%, with revenue above KRW 23 trillion, about 230 aircraft, roughly 28,000 employees and a network of about 120 cities.
Based on roughly KRW 300 billion in annual synergies, it aims to become a mega-carrier ranked around 15th globally in passenger, top five in cargo and top ten overall.
Korean Air Vice Chairman and CEO Woo Kee-hong recently called the integration "the biggest turning point in our history" at a shareholder briefing and pointed to synergies offsetting integration costs after 2028.
That said, per the guidance on remaining procedures, delays in the safety-operations change inspection and overseas regulatory approvals could shift the launch date.
Valuation here is tied far more tightly to merger terms than to conventional earnings multiples.
The ratio is fixed at 0.2736432 Asiana shares per Korean Air share, with 20,337,721 new common shares to be issued; merger values were set at KRW 25,409 for Korean Air and KRW 6,953 for Asiana, with a merger date of December 16, 2026 and new-share listing on January 4, 2027.
In practice, the share price over the remaining period largely reflects the gap versus Korean Air's price applied at the exchange ratio, plus the probability that the process completes on schedule.
Because net income attributable to owners over the most recent four quarters is negative, no price-earnings multiple is computed, and with no dividend there is no dividend yield to compute.
The net-asset multiple varies materially by calculation basis: an in-house basis uses owners' equity excluding non-controlling interests, while the exchange's published figure applies a higher book value per share, so the premium to net assets looks different at the same share price.
With a debt-to-equity ratio above 1,300% at end-2025 and equity eroded by continued losses, the range of reasonable readings for net-asset multiples is wide, and profit-based multiples from the profitable 2022-2023 years are not directly comparable with the loss-making 2025-2026 period.
PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are all calculated in-house (the same method as Naver and Toss) · Dividend yield = cash dividend per share from DART filings (supplemented by KRX) ÷ current price · As of 2026-09-04
Most gating items have cleared. MOLIT approved the merger on June 25, 2026 after review under the Aviation Business Act. Asiana's August 12 extraordinary shareholder meeting approved the merger agreement, with 81.86% of all shares represented and 99.3% of those voting in favor.
With the exchange ratio and timetable fixed in disclosures, process uncertainty has shifted from whether approvals come to whether the execution schedule holds.
Passenger metrics moved in the right direction. The company reported Q2 2026 passenger revenue of KRW 1.2809 trillion, up KRW 163.3 billion or 15% year on year, with the load factor up 5 percentage points and passenger unit revenue up 10% even as capacity fell 2% on heavy maintenance (separate basis).
Growing revenue through yield and load factor rather than capacity leaves room for operating-margin improvement if the cost environment eases. It should be noted, however, that this improvement did not return company-wide earnings to profit.
Post-merger scale changes materially. The combination lifts the operating fleet to about 230 aircraft, adding Asiana's roughly 50 jets to Korean Air's 178. Korean Air has set a target of becoming a top-ten global mega-carrier on the back of about KRW 300 billion in annual synergies.
The carriers say they will stagger departure times on overlapping routes to widen consumer choice and allocate daily frequencies more efficiently to strengthen Incheon's transfer competitiveness.
Consolidated operating losses ran for four straight quarters: KRW 197.7 billion in Q3 2025, KRW 196.0 billion in Q4, KRW 52.4 billion in Q1 2026 and KRW 356.3 billion in Q2 2026. Revenue itself also fell from KRW 8.3186 trillion in 2024 to KRW 7.2668 trillion in 2025.
Commentary noted that the shrinking cargo network and sales base created a structure that dragged down overall profitability despite passenger growth. Whether better passenger yields alone can fill the cargo gap has not yet shown up in quarterly profit.
At end-2025, total liabilities were KRW 11.3586 trillion against equity of KRW 829.0 billion, a debt-to-equity ratio of 1,370.2%. Operating cash flow plunged from KRW 1.4583 trillion in 2024 to KRW 137.0 billion in 2025.
Currency moves feed straight into the bottom line: the company said its Q2 2026 net loss of KRW 328.6 billion on a separate basis reflected wider foreign-currency translation losses as the quarter-end rate rose to KRW 1,542, up KRW 107 from end-2025.
The consumer-facing piece of the merger is unresolved.
Shareholder approvals for the corporate merger are done, but the mileage integration plan is still under KFTC review; Korean Air resubmitted a revised plan on January 22, 2026 after being asked in December 2025 to supplement it, and more than 200 days later it remains unapproved.
The KFTC reported to the National Assembly's political affairs committee that if approval does not come before the merger date, the two mileage programs may have to be maintained separately until it does, while Korean Air has flagged concerns about enforcement fines and reduced merger synergies in that case.
Deferred mileage revenue stood at KRW 3.1199 trillion for Korean Air and KRW 948.6 billion for Asiana per their half-year reports.
Fuel and currency are the largest swing factors for airline earnings. Jet fuel fell 43% from its peak to USD 127.5 per barrel at end-May but rebounded to USD 140.5 on June 7, roughly 1.7 times the level at the start of the year (Mirae Asset Securities, June 2026).
When supply chains are disrupted, as during Middle East conflict, jet fuel prices often rise more than crude and come down more slowly, which can delay cost normalization. With about 70% of key operating costs paid in dollars, cost relief is limited without a stronger won.
The approval is conditional. MOLIT said it approved the merger on a conditional basis, citing the need for periodic checks on Korean Air's submitted plan and the completion of the safety-operations change inspection and overseas regulatory approvals.
Official guidance explicitly notes the launch date could change if remaining procedures are delayed. In addition, remedies such as caps on fare increases apply to routes where competition concerns were raised, constraining post-merger pricing.
The merger extinguishes the Asiana corporate entity and brand. Once complete, the separate Asiana Airlines brand disappears and the combined carrier operates under the Korean Air name.
The merger date is December 16, 2026 with new shares slated to list on January 4, 2027; because this is a small-scale merger under Article 527-3 of the Commercial Act, Korean Air shareholders are not granted appraisal rights.
Shareholders should verify trading-suspension windows around the merger, treatment of fractional shares and the ratio application process directly in company disclosures.
The Q3 2026 quarterly report and earnings disclosure. Management guided to improvement from the third quarter on calmer fuel and currency plus the summer peak, so the key check is whether the four-quarter run of operating losses actually narrowed.
Whether the KFTC approves the mileage integration plan. If it is not approved by the merger date, both mileage programs must be kept running even after the combined entity launches, which bears directly on integration costs and the pace of synergy realization.
Completion of creditor-protection procedures and progress on remaining approvals. MOLIT attached follow-up requirements including the safety-operations change inspection and overseas authority approvals to its conditional clearance, so their progress determines whether the December timetable holds.
The merger date and launch of the combined carrier. Asiana formally exits Star Alliance at 11:59 p.m. Korea time on December 16, and the companies plan to file the merger registration on December 17 after completing procedures. Watch for shifts in partner-route and transfer demand following the alliance change.
Listing of the merger's new shares. A total of 20,337,721 new common shares will be issued, with the listing scheduled for January 4, 2027. This is the point to verify the ratio application, fractional-share handling and the timing of the combined entity's first earnings disclosure.
Asiana Airlines is currently being assessed less on its own earnings cycle than on the endpoint of its merger process.
Consolidated results flipped from KRW 8.3186 trillion in revenue and KRW 275.7 billion in operating profit in 2024 to KRW 7.2668 trillion and an operating loss of KRW 345.2 billion in 2025, with four consecutive quarterly operating losses from Q3 2025 through Q2 2026.
The company said passenger revenue grew at a double-digit rate while cargo revenue fell sharply after the August 2025 freighter division sale (August 13, 2026, separate basis). A debt-to-equity ratio above 1,300% and high currency sensitivity amplify earnings volatility until integration.
On the other hand, the merger's main gates have cleared via MOLIT approval and the extraordinary shareholder meeting, and the exchange ratio, merger date and new-share listing date are fixed in disclosures.
What remains to be verified is KFTC approval of the mileage plan, the safety-operations change inspection and overseas approvals, and whether Q3 results genuinely narrowed the loss.
The bullish case rests on process visibility and improving passenger yields, the bearish case on the cargo gap, financial burden and integration costs; this report is for information purposes and contains no buy or sell opinion and no target price.
Report written 2026-09-05 · Data as of 2026-09-04
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