BUSAN -- About 10 minutes outside Gimhae International Airport in Busan stands a cluster of buildings that make up the Korean Air Busan Tech Center. Housing facilities for airplane maintenance, repair and overhaul as well as manufacturing, the 710,000-square-meter complex is where Korean Air is currently building parts for the new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

Korean Air is best known for its commercial airline, but at the Busan Tech Center it has also been in charge of maintaining aircraft as well as developing and producing parts. The center has been open since the 1970s, but because it handled military as well as commercial aircraft, it had been kept secret from the public until about five years ago.

“We could not let on that we were in the defense industry, so to outsiders we were just known as the Saemaul Factory,” Do Hyun-jun, senior vice president at Korean Air‘s Aerospace Division, told reporters at the Tech Center Friday. According to Do, even locals thought of the center as just being part of the Saemaul modernization movement pushed by then-president Park Chung-hee. 

The company first began working with Boeing in 1986, when it produced flap track fairings and winglets for the B747-400.

In 2004, Korean Air moved up from its mechanical role of producing parts to take part in the design process for the B787 through an international co-development agreement. It is currently producing five parts including the raked wing tip, after body, and flap support fairings.

“Companies that take part in the co-development project are involved in the entire process from development and design to production and testing,” an official with the Korean Air Aerospace Division.

The Boeing 787-9 is one of the industry‘s most anticipated aircraft, with almost half its weight made up of composite materials instead of metal. The airplane’s light weight, despite its 290 seats, allows for 20 percent more fuel efficiency and a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. 

The first Dreamliner to come to Korea will be brought in by Korean Air at the end of February. The airline plans to buy five Dreamliners this year, with five more in the future.

Although the Boeing Dreamliner is the headline event for Korean Air‘s Aerospace Division, the company is looking to its unmanned aerial military aircraft to boost its profits in the years to come. 

In 2016, the ASD’s revenues reached 1.03 trillion won ($893 million), with just about 10 percent coming from unmanned aerial vehicles. However, this year Korean Air ASD is planning to begin supplying the Korean military with unmanned vehicles called KUS-FT. It is also currently working on recrafting the historic 500MD helicopter into an unmanned vehicle together with Boeing, with “buyers from many countries who have shown interest,“ according to a Korean Air official.

With the push from these projects, ASD hopes to reach 2 trillion win revenue by 2020 and 3 trillion by 2025, with revenues from UAVs accounting for about a third of all revenue, according to the company. 

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)