Asiana Airlines Adds Prague, Plans Central And Eastern Europe Expansion

Asiana Airlines will expand its European network in April by launching flights to Prague, its seventh destination in the region.

Starting April 1, the carrier will operate three weekly flights between Seoul Incheon International Airport and Prague’s Václav Havel Airport (PRG) on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The route will be served by a 311-seat Airbus A350-900 aircraft.

Korean Air, which completed its acquisition of Asiana in December, already operates a Seoul-Prague route with four weekly flights—a service it has offered since 2004. Korean Air will continue its operations alongside Asiana’s new service, increasing the total weekly connections between the two cities to seven.

“Passengers will gain the opportunity to use a number of connecting flights within the Asiana Airlines network from Seoul to destinations in the region,” PRG Chairman Jiří Pos says. “A further increase in the number of flights will also support business cooperation between the Czech Republic and South Korea and open the Czech Republic to more Asian tourists.”

Asiana currently flies to six destinations in Europe, namely Barcelona, Frankfurt, Istanbul, London, Paris and Rome. President Won YooSeok says the addition of Prague will “lay the foundations” for strengthening the airline’s network in Central and Eastern Europe.

Alongside Korean Air’s service to Prague, the airline also flies three times per week between Seoul and Budapest, Hungary. Other connections between South Korea and Central and Eastern Europe comprise LOT Polish Airlines’ routes to ICN from Budapest, Warsaw and Wroclaw, Poland.

Sabre Market Intelligence data reveals that two-way O&D traffic between South Korea and Central and Eastern Europe reached approximately 926,000 passengers in the first 11 months of 2024. Seoul-Prague ranked as the fourth-largest city pair, with about 100,000 passengers.

Prague remains a popular tourist destination for South Koreans, boosted by the continued popularity of the 2005 South Korean TV drama series Lovers in Prague. According to the Czech Republic Embassy in Seoul, the majority of Korean visitors are aged 30-44, representing 59.6% of all arrivals. It says such visitors perceive the city as “a romantic Instagram destination.”