Airlines across Asia-Pacific entered the second quarter facing two forces pulling against each other.
The Iran war that began on February 28 closed critical Gulf airspace and redistributed global connecting traffic toward hubs normally competing with Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi.
The conflict handed carriers from Seoul to Singapore passengers they hadn’t planned for, but it also drove jet fuel to prices no one had budgeted for going into the year.
Five of the largest Asia-Pacific carriers have now reported for the quarter. Revenue growth was strong at all of them, in some cases the strongest on record, with four key factors influencing the results:
Whether their hubs could compete effectively
How much cargo exposure they carried into an AI-driven freight boom
How much pricing power they had
How much of the fuel spike they could absorb
Korean Air’s Split Quarter
Korean Air is a clear example of how a strong quarter and a bad qu