The airline is developing Navoi International Airport as a regional logistics hub and has built a 150,000 sq meter cargo terminal based on its state-of-the-art design at its Incheon (Seoul) hub.

The facility has an initial capacity of 100,000 tonnes of cargo a year and includes chilled storage. It can be expanded to handle 500,000 tonnes as required. The first scheduled freighter call is a three times a week B747-400F service from Incheon to Milan via Navoi.

Korean Air is exploiting fifth-freedom rights to provide more competitive freighter service direct from China to the US and Europe, having previously been required to fly back to Korea before going to onward destinations

The carrier has also relaunched its cool chain service, now branded Variation-Pharma 1, 2 and 3 to enable Korean to customize its offering to meetl globa pharmaceutical companies’ specific supply chain needs.