Air Premia

Is Air Premia safe?

Yes, as far as its short record shows. Air Premia has flown since August 2021 without an accident, flies only the Boeing 787-9, passes the IATA safety audit and has not been fined by the Korean transport ministry (MOLIT). The catch is time: five years with fewer than ten aircraft says less than decades of data. We score it 85, close to Korean Air (84), with medium confidence.

What kind of airline is Air Premia?

A small long-haul airline based at Incheon. It started in 2017 as AP Air, took its first 787-9 from the lessor Air Lease Corporation in March 2021, and flew its first passengers from Gimpo to Jeju on 11 August 2021. Early on it flew cargo to Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City while passenger travel was still shut down.

It calls itself a hybrid airline: no business class, but a premium economy cabin with more space, sold at prices closer to economy. By mid-2025 it flew to Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Honolulu, and to Bangkok, Tokyo Narita, Da Nang and Hong Kong. Washington Dulles followed on 24 April 2026, and it has flown charters to Europe.

One aircraft type, one engine

Air Premia flies the 787-9 and nothing else, with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. That makes training and maintenance simpler. The 787 is a current fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary type with a strong record; its first fatal accident, at Ahmedabad in June 2025, did not involve Air Premia.

The weak point of a small one-type fleet is spares. From 2016, durability problems with Trent 1000 blades grounded dozens of 787s at other airlines, and a fleet of eight cannot easily cover an aircraft or engine out of service. Air Premia was getting its fourth spare engine in mid-2025 and signed a deal with the Korean maintenance company KAEMS that July to pool 787 parts and move heavy maintenance to Korea. Spare engines and parts affect how many aircraft can fly, not how safely they fly, so we describe them but do not score them.

The aircraft are fairly young. The first was delivered new in 2021, others were leased second-hand (the sixth, in December 2024, had flown for Norwegian), and the eighth arrived in June 2025.

What incidents has Air Premia had?

Few that are public. The clearest case was on 30 July 2024, when flight YP5211, a charter from Incheon to Oslo with about 300 passengers, turned back over Kazakhstan after one engine's oil consumption rose above normal. It landed at Incheon at 2:30 a.m., 13 hours after leaving. The crew took the conservative choice, which is what you want, though the passengers spent the night back where they started.

MOLIT's list of airline fines from 2021 to 2025 covers six Korean airlines, and Air Premia is not on it. We found no Korean investigation report on an Air Premia flight. With so little on record, we score incidents at 76 rather than higher: a short record without events is good, but it is not yet proof.

Who owns it and does the money matter?

Air Premia's largest shareholder is AP Holdings, owned by the family of Tire Bank chairman Kim Jung-kyu; with Tire Bank's own stake the group held about 70% at the end of 2025. In July 2026 the airline announced a 110 billion won share issue to existing shareholders, due on 29 September, as part of a financial improvement plan it had submitted to MOLIT.

In October 2026 the private equity firm VIG Partners, which already owns Eastar Jet, was named preferred bidder for the roughly 70% stake held by AP Holdings and Tire Bank. No sale contract had been announced by late October.

Finances do not lower the safety rules, but an airline short of cash can struggle to pay for spare engines and parts. That is a risk to watch, not a mark in the score.

Who oversees Air Premia?

South Korea's transport ministry, which holds FAA IASAFAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary Category 1. No Korean airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and Air Premia is an IATA member, which requires IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. We give it 84 for oversight, the same as other Korean airlines, because the ministry approved the concrete localizer berm that made the Muan crash so deadly.

Flying Air Premia

On a long flight to the US, turbulence is the hazard most likely to hurt you: keep your belt fastened when you sleep, over the blanket so crew can see it. If your flight is delayed by a technical fault, the airline has few spare aircraft, so book a flexible ticket when the date matters, and choose an airline with a bigger fleet if a missed connection would be costly.

How we scored it

Accident record (88) is clean but short. Fleet (88) is all 787-9s and young. Serious incidents (76) is the lowest factor because the public record is thin, and oversight (84) matches other Korean airlines. Overall 85.