First Asiana Jet Repainted in Korean Air Livery as December Merger Nears
A hybrid livery signals the merger's final stretch
An Asiana Airlines Airbus A321-200 has begun flying domestic routes in South Korea wearing Korean Air's redesigned livery while still carrying the Asiana name and logo on its fuselage — the first physical, visible evidence that the long-anticipated absorption of Asiana into Korean Air is entering its final phase. The aircraft was spotted and reported by plane-spotting accounts and aviation outlets including FL360aero and Airways Magazine in the first week of September 2026, with the jet scheduled to enter domestic service from September 9.
The hybrid paint scheme — Korean Air's new blue-toned exterior design paired with Asiana's branding, name and logo still intact — is a deliberate transitional look. Under the integration plan confirmed by both carriers, Asiana will keep operating under its own brand and air operator's certificate for a period even after the corporate merger takes legal effect, while its aircraft, IT systems, flight numbers and airport operations are converted progressively rather than overnight. The A321-200 involved is a narrowbody typically deployed on short-haul routes within South Korea and to nearby regional destinations, consistent with reports that the carrier is starting the repaint program with its domestic and short-haul fleet before moving to widebodies used on long-haul international routes.
Why the timing matters
The repainting comes roughly 100 days ahead of December 17, 2026, the date Korean Air and Asiana have set for the launch of the combined, integrated carrier. That date follows a legal merger effective date of December 16, 2026, at which point Asiana Airlines is set to be formally dissolved as a standalone corporate entity, with its shares delisted and folded into Korean Air's parent, Hanjin KAL.
The merger itself has been years in the making. Korean Air's parent first announced its intention to acquire a controlling stake in Asiana in November 2020, during the depths of the pandemic-era downturn that left the smaller carrier searching for a rescue. The acquisition of a 63.88% stake was completed in December 2024, after a drawn-out approval process that required antitrust and competition clearance from 14 countries and regions, including the European Union, the United States, Japan and China — reportedly the most extensive regulatory gauntlet an airline merger of this kind has faced in the region. The final domestic corporate step came on August 12, 2026, when both companies' boards and an extraordinary general meeting of Asiana shareholders approved the merger terms, with shareholders voting 99.3% in favor on an 81.86% participation rate.
Asiana is also set to formally exit the Star Alliance on December 16, 2026, at 23:59 Korea Standard Time — the same window as the legal merger date — after which Star Alliance award bookings on Asiana-operated flights are expected to stop being available, reportedly from around December 1. Korean Air is a founding member of the rival SkyTeam alliance, and Asiana's departure from Star Alliance has been one of the more closely watched knock-on effects of the deal for frequent flyers in the region who hold status or miles with Star Alliance carriers.
What the new livery looks like
Korean Air unveiled its redesigned livery and branding in March 2025, its first complete visual overhaul since 1984. The new design replaced the airline's longstanding straight-line split between blue and white fuselage sections with a curved dividing line, simplified the wordmark to emphasize "KOREAN" in larger lettering, and introduced a more minimalist rendering of the taeguk symbol — the red-and-blue swirl drawn from the Korean national flag — as the tail logo. Korean Air's chief marketing officer said at the time that the update was designed to "align with modern and global minimalist branding trends while preserving the airline's distinct identity." The airline's first aircraft painted in the new scheme, a Boeing 787-10, entered service in March 2025, well before the Asiana merger reached its current stage.
Applying that same livery to Asiana's aircraft — while retaining Asiana's name and logo for now — creates a visibly transitional aircraft: Korean Air's color scheme and tail design paired with Asiana's identity elsewhere on the fuselage. It mirrors the approach many airline mergers take globally, where a "dual branding" or transitional livery phase bridges the gap between a legal merger and full operational and brand integration, which typically takes considerably longer to complete than the corporate paperwork.
Asiana's fleet numbers around 67 aircraft, and reports indicate these will be repainted progressively, with the sequencing of individual aircraft determined by each jet's maintenance schedule and flight assignments rather than a fixed calendar — meaning the transition across the full fleet is expected to stretch well beyond the December legal merger date.
The bigger integration picture
The livery is only the most visible piece of a much larger integration effort. Under the plan overseen in part by South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the combined carrier will eventually need to harmonize flight numbering, reservation and IT systems, cabin crew uniforms, in-flight food and beverage programs, airport lounge operations, and maintenance and ground-handling contracts across both carriers' networks — a process airlines elsewhere in the world have taken multiple years to complete even after a merger's legal close.
New shares in the merged entity are expected to begin trading around January 4, 2027, shortly after the integrated carrier's December 17 launch. In the meantime, South Korean travelers and internationally connecting passengers are likely to see a growing number of aircraft, over the coming months, that carry Korean Air's livery but still fly under the Asiana name — a visual signal, each time one appears at an airport gate, of how far the world's most heavily scrutinized recent airline merger has progressed, and how much integration work remains before the Asiana name disappears from the skies entirely.
For now, the airline has not disclosed the registration number of the first repainted A321-200, nor a detailed public schedule for which routes or bases will see the next aircraft converted. Korean Air and Asiana have not issued a joint statement specifically addressing this individual repaint; the sighting was first reported by aviation spotters and trade outlets rather than in a company press release, so some specifics — including the aircraft's exact tail number and its assigned domestic routes beyond "short-haul service from September 9" — remain unconfirmed pending official confirmation from either carrier.
What travelers should expect in the meantime
Passengers booking flights on either carrier over the next several months are likely to encounter exactly this kind of mismatch between livery and branding at the gate, and airline staff at both carriers have reportedly been fielding questions from travelers confused about which airline is actually operating a given flight. Loyalty program members are the group most directly affected in the near term: Asiana operates its own frequent-flyer program, and travelers holding Asiana Club miles or status have already been advised to watch for conversion details as the airlines merge their loyalty schemes, a process that industry watchers expect to lag behind the operational and branding integration by a considerable margin, based on how comparable mergers — including several in the US and European markets over the past two decades — have typically unfolded.
Cargo operations, ground-handling contracts and maintenance arrangements at Asiana's home hub of Incheon International Airport are also expected to be consolidated with Korean Air's over time, though neither carrier has published a detailed public timeline for when specific functions will be merged versus when they will continue operating in parallel. Both carriers have said the priority through the December legal merger date is regulatory and financial completion, with full operational integration — including the fleet livery rollout across all 67 Asiana aircraft — continuing well into 2027.
The scale of the combined carrier once integration is complete would make it one of the larger airline groups in Asia by fleet size, combining Korean Air's long-haul widebody network with Asiana's shorter-haul and regional routes, though neither company has released a consolidated post-merger fleet count or route-map projection as of early September 2026. Analysts covering the deal have generally framed the livery sighting as a low-cost, highly visible way for Korean Air to signal progress on a merger that has taken roughly five years from initial announcement to its planned completion — far longer than the multi-year regulatory review typical of major airline consolidations, a delay driven in large part by the breadth of antitrust scrutiny across markets including Europe, the United States, Japan and China.
Sources
- FL360aero — Asiana A321 Appears in Korean Air's New Livery as Long-Awaited Integration Enters Final Phase
- LoyaltyLobby — Asiana Airlines Unveils New Livery In Korean Air Style, First Aircraft Repainted
- FL360aero on X — first-look post on the repainted Asiana A321-200
- Airways Magazine on X — Asiana A321-200 entering service in Korean Air livery
- One Mile at a Time — Korean Air Unveils New Livery & Branding
- Travel And Tour World — Korean Air Unveils New Branding and Aircraft Livery Ahead of Asiana Merger