This Airline Confirms A380 Return To JFK & LAX For Summer 2026

Korean Air is set to add its largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, on select routes to the United States, with its filing for the Northern Hemisphere summer season, identifying that the double-decker will connect Seoul to Los Angeles and New York from March.

This won’t be the first time this aircraft has been deployed to JFK and LAX, with the airline having operated the Airbus A380 to both New York John F. Kennedy and Los Angeles International Airport for the summer season last year, and other select peak travel periods.

More Capacity To Key American Markets

As published by Aeroroutes, the Airbus A380 will fly daily from late March from Seoul Incheon International Airport (ICN) to New York JFK Airport (JFK) from March 29, replacing the current Boeing 777-300ER on the airline’s route from the South Korean capital. The flight is scheduled to depart at 10:00 am for the direct flight, arriving in New York, arriving at 10:00 am the same day (due to crossing the international date line). The flight has a block time of 14 hours eastbound.

For the return journey, flights depart from the city that never sleeps, pushing back daily at 12:00 pm (noon), for the near 14 hour journey westbound. The flight then arrives back into Seoul Incheon at 5:45 pm the next day. Korean Air will become just one of a select few airlines that operate the A380 to JFK, with Emirates being the only carrier to maintain a regular double-decker service to the airport. Korean Air frequently flies the Airbus A380 to JFK during peak travel periods, such as this week during the Christmas travel rush.

Simple Flying reached out to Korean Air for comment on the resumption of the Airbus A380 services to JFK and LAX; however, the airline did not immediately respond by the time this article was published.

Non-Stop To Hollywood

Korean Air will also maintain Airbus A380 operations to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) from March 30, with the service operating four times weekly on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. These steps are to replace the current Boeing 747-8 currently operating the daily service with the double-decker set to support its operations from March 30.

KE11 will depart from Seoul at 7:40 pm daily, for the ten-hour flight to Los Angeles, arriving at LAX at 1:40 pm the same day. Return flights operating as KE12 then depart at 10:50 pm and arrive back into Seoul Incheon at 5:10 am two days later.

Los Angeles and New York will join the list of A380 routes served by Korean Air for next summer. This comes at a time when its sister airline, Asiana Airlines, also axed its own Airbus A380 routes to Los Angeles from June. Read more about the Asiana and Korean Air merger here.

Five Airbus A380s At Korean Air

Korean Air usually schedules the A380 on services to Frankfurt Airport, Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, and Tokyo Narita Airport. The airline is no stranger to boosting capacity to key American markets with the iconic double-decker aircraft, having done so last summer. According to ch-aviation, KE has a fleet of around 160 aircraft, of which it has just five are the Airbus A380s.

These airplanes all have an average age of between 11 and 13 years, and have been one of the airline’s flagship aircraft since their introduction (along with being one of the sole remaining operators of the type, and the Boeing 747-8 ‘ Queen of the Skies‘). A380 aircraft specifics below:

Korean Air does have a plan to eventually retire the A380 from its fleet, but this has been pushed back from the initial 2026 target. This is due to ongoing aircraft delivery delays to the carriers’ Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 orders. This now sees the airline undertaking additional maintenance and retrofitting to ensure the aircraft remain fit for purpose for the next decade.