1st Anniversary of CEO Kim I-bae's Appointment: "Jeju Air's Resilience is Strong... Will Soar Again"

by Lee Dongwoo

Published 07 Jun.2021 14:52(KST)

1st Anniversary Employee Meeting

Kim I-bae, CEO of Jeju Air

Kim I-bae, CEO of Jeju Air, celebrated his first anniversary in office by expressing confidence that "Jeju Air, with its strong resilience, will soar again as the number one low-cost carrier (LCC)."

According to the aviation industry on the 7th, Kim recently held an online meeting with company executives and employees, stating, "As the post-COVID-19 era is expected to bring a qualitatively different aviation market, we will actively consider expanding long-haul routes to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and others to secure core competitiveness."

This meeting was organized to reflect on the past year since Kim took office on the 1st amid the COVID-19 situation and to share thoughts with the staff.

Kim said, "I joined Jeju Air anticipating the prolonged COVID-19 situation, so I was prepared for difficulties," adding, "During the first two months after taking office, I invested a lot of time dealing with the merger and acquisition (M&A) issues of Eastar Jet and obtaining government support funds approval by the end of the year."

He continued, "Jeju Air has led the market rather than just following the growing market, creating new attempts and standards," and added, "I believe this was possible because the employees had confidence that they could do it."

However, he emphasized, "There are situations where our various strengths have become weaknesses during the COVID-19 situation," and "Some aspects that we neglected during our rapid growth are now surfacing. These are tasks that need improvement."

Before the full-scale spread of COVID-19 last year, Jeju Air strengthened routes to Japan and China and signed a purchase contract for 50 Boeing 737 Max aircraft from the U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing, marking a significant expansion in scale.

This led to management burdens such as fixed cost expenditures during the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, resulting in an operating loss of 87.3 billion KRW in the first quarter of this year, and the debt ratio increased by 226 percentage points year-on-year to 705%.