Asiana Airlines is experiencing difficulties providing in-flight meals for its passengers due to delays in meal deliveries from its supplier.
More than 50 Asiana planes failed to depart on time for two days from Sunday. Three dozen Asiana planes even took off from Incheon International Airport without enough in-flight meals.
Additionally, 12 planes reportedly flew without any in-flight meals, leaving its passengers hungry not only on short-distance flights, but also long-distance ones including a 12-hour flight to Frankfurt from Incheon
A company official said the company would solve the problem as soon as possible, but the airline's "no-meal flights" are likely to continue in the coming days as the supplier is found to be incapable of producing and delivering meals on time.
Starting with Asiana Airlines flight OZ365 to Shanghai at 2 p.m. on Sunday, 12 flights took off from Incheon without in-flight meals. The company also failed to serve a second in-flight meal on the 12-hour flight OZ541 to Frankfurt, Germany, the same day.
"Asiana Airlines is looking for every means necessary to settle the problem as soon as possible," the official said.
"A number of airplanes couldn't take off on time due to delays yesterday, but things are getting better today. I think we will be able to deliver in-flight meals on time within two or three days."
Asiana signed a three-month in-flight meal supply deal recently with Do & Co Korea, and it was the supplieer's first day delivering meals.
Industry observers said the no-meal flight problem won't be settled anytime soon, since Do & Co Korea isn't large enough to make and deliver meals for Asiana's up to 30,000 daily passengers.
Do & Co Korea is reportedly a meal supplier with 100 workers, and has a maximum capacity of 3,000 meals a day.