Asiana Airlines suspends selling seats next to emergency exit doors

South Korea’s Asiana Airlines Inc., which had an incident of landing with the emergency exit door open, will not sell seats next to the emergency exit of the same model as the aircraft in the accident last Friday.

Asiana Airlines said it has suspended all sales of the A321-200 aircraft's seats in front of the emergency exit door starting Sunday.

The discontinued seats are 26A seats in the A321-200 (11 units) operated with 174 seats, and 31A seats in the A321-200 (3 units) operated with 195 seats.

Last Friday, a passenger whose surname is Lee opened the emergency exit door 213 meters above ground just minutes before landing at Daegu International Airport in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul. Nine of the passengers showed symptoms such as shortness of breath and were treated at a hospital.

The passenger who opened the door of the accident aircraft sat in the 31A seat of the 195-seat aircraft.

The suspension of sales is for safety purposes and applies even if flights are full, Asiana Airlines said. No deadline has been set for the application. However, other aircraft models operated by Asiana Airlines sell seats in front of the emergency exit as before.

Some other airlines have also begun reviewing whether it is necessary to change the sales policy for seats in front of the emergency exit in the aftermath of the accident.

Air Seoul, a low-cost carrier (LCC) that operates the same A321-200 as a subsidiary of Asiana Airlines, has begun considering whether to change its policy of selling seats in front of emergency exits.

Other LCCs such as Air Premia are also discussing changing their sales policy.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com