Eastar Jet

Is Eastar Jet safe?

Yes. Eastar Jet has never had a fatal accident or written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft, it passes the IATA safety audit, and since it came back in 2023 it has flown a fleet in which most aircraft are new Boeing 737-8s. The weak spot is its record before 2020, when the transport ministry (MOLIT) fined it for flying aircraft without required checks and for false training records. We score it 83, ahead of T'way (79) and Jin Air (81).

What happened between 2020 and 2023?

Eastar stopped all flights in March 2020. The pandemic emptied its routes, and the airline was already short of money. Its air operator certificate lapsed when it stopped flying, and it spent the next three years in court rehabilitation and changes of owner. The private equity firm VIG Partners bought all of its shares on 6 January 2023 and put in 110 billion won of new capital.

To fly again, Eastar had to earn a new certificate. MOLIT tested its safety staff, training, flight operations and maintenance, including evacuation drills, and reissued the certificate on 28 February 2023. Flights restarted at the end of March 2023 on the busy Gimpo–Jeju route with three 737-800s, and the ministry said it would run a full check six months later.

How we treat the gap. Years without flights add neither credit nor risk. We judge the accident record on the roughly 14 years Eastar has actually flown, before and after the stop. The return itself was a real risk: pilots, engineers and aircraft had been idle for three years. We found no reported event linked to the restart, but the post-2023 record is short, which is why our confidence is medium.

What was Eastar fined for?

Before 2020, quite a lot for its size. MOLIT figures for 2014 to 2019 show 2.9 billion won in fines for Eastar. The two largest came in 2019:

• Skipped checks. In late 2017 Eastar flew aircraft ten times without the pre-flight and post-flight checks its maintenance rules required. It was fined 1.65 billion won and one engineer had a licence suspended for 30 days. Eastar sued; the Seoul Administrative Court upheld the fine in August 2020, noting that repeated flights without the checks raised the risk of an accident.
• False records. Eastar was fined 420 million won for writing and submitting false logs of dangerous goods training, and three staff were fined.

Skipped checks and invented paperwork are the kind of failure a safety system exists to catch, and they weigh more in our score than any single mechanical fault.

Since the restart the record is clean. MOLIT's list of fines from 2021 to 2025 names six Korean airlines, and Eastar is not among them. In the ministry's 2025 airline evaluation, Eastar scored 100 out of 100 for safety, with no accident, serious incident or penalty in the period and a safety management score of 3.8 out of 4, well above the industry average.

What incidents has Eastar had?

None fatal. The ones on record:

• Ibaraki, August 2019. Flight ZE681 from Seoul was cleared to land on runway 03L but lined up with 03R, where a vehicle was standing. The crew went around from very low height and landed on the right runway nine minutes later. Japan's JTSB investigated.
• Incheon approach, February 2020. Flight ZE502 from Kota Kinabalu, a 737-800, hit clear air turbulence while descending. A passenger who was not wearing a seat belt broke a bone, four cabin crew were hurt and ten more passengers had minor injuries. Korea's investigators blamed turbulence of unexpected intensity and passengers without belts.
• Earlier events. An engine shut down in flight near Seoul in October 2012, and a 737-800 had a gear well fire warning at Sapporo in September 2017.

What does Eastar fly?

Boeing 737s only. At the end of 2025 Eastar took its 20th aircraft, a factory-new 737-8; half the fleet was then 737-8s, and the average age had fallen to seven years. More 737-8s arrived in 2026, and CAPA counted 24 aircraft by September. The rest are 737-800s. Both types fly widely with low accident rates; the 737 MAX returned to service in 2020 with redesigned flight control software and new pilot training.

Who oversees Eastar?

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 Eastar 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, as for every Korean airline, and not higher because the ministry approved the concrete localizer berm that made the Muan crash so deadly.

Flying Eastar safely

Keep your seat belt loosely fastened whenever you are seated, even with the sign off. Eastar's one injury accident came on a descent into Incheon, and the worst-hurt passenger was the one without a belt. On the short Gimpo–Jeju hop, the cabin service is quick and the descent starts early, so get back to your seat as soon as you can.

How we scored it

Accident record (90) is clean of deaths and lost aircraft over about 14 flying years. Fleet (80) is young and mostly new-generation. Serious incidents (66) is the weak factor because of the 2019 fines, although the record since the restart is clean. Oversight (84) matches other Korean airlines. Overall 83.