AirZeta (Air Incheon)

If you see a jumbo freighter with an HL registration in Frankfurt, you probably think of Korean Air or Asiana first. Since August 2025 there has been a third possibility: AirZeta, the former Air Incheon. The small South Korean cargo airline took over Asiana’s entire cargo division and has been flying Boeing 747 freighters on long-haul routes ever since. This page shows you how that came about, which aircraft the airline flies and how to tell AirZeta apart from the other Korean carriers.

AirZeta at a glance

AirZeta is a pure cargo airline from South Korea based in Incheon, with its hub at Seoul-Incheon Airport. It was founded in 2012 under the name Air Incheon. In March 2013 it began flight operations – with a single converted Boeing 737-400 that mainly carried cargo to China, Japan and the Russian Far East.

For many years Air Incheon remained a niche operator. The fleet consisted of a few narrowbody freighters, and a first foray into the widebody class with a converted Boeing 767 ended after just over a year. It was the merger of Korean Air and Asiana Airlines that fundamentally changed the airline: as the buyer of the Asiana cargo business, Air Incheon became a long-haul cargo airline overnight on August 1, 2025 – and renamed itself AirZeta at the same time.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code KJ: appears in the flight number, so in cargo schedules and on airport overview boards.
• ICAO code AIH: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers. It is a leftover from the days as Air Incheon and stayed in place after the renaming.
• Callsign: For a long time the crew identified itself on the radio as “AIR INCHEON.” Several reference sources report a callsign change for 2026. Because this is not yet cleanly documented everywhere, you should mainly rely on the ICAO code and the registration when identifying an aircraft.

Pay particular attention to the code: Asiana’s freighters used to fly under the Asiana code. Since August 2025, the same aircraft operate under AIH. If you see a 747 with an HL registration on a tracker, only the code tells you whether Korean Air or AirZeta is operating it.

From Air Incheon to AirZeta: the history

The beginnings with the 737-400SF

Air Incheon started small. Its first aircraft was a Boeing 737-400SF – a former passenger jet converted into a freighter. The airline began operations with it in 2013, and a second 737-400SF joined the same year. In the first years, routes from Incheon to Tokyo-Narita, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Chinese cities such as Yantai and Chengdu were added – typical destinations for short-haul express and e-commerce cargo.

A brief foray into the widebody class

In 2018, Air Incheon took over a Boeing 767-300ER converted to a freighter. That same year, Hanoi added a route to Vietnam. The foray into the widebody class did not last long, though: in 2019 the airline retired the 767 and one of the 737-400SFs again, and a letter of intent to lease three 737-800 freighters was canceled for financial reasons.

A fresh start with the 737-800SF

From 2021, Air Incheon switched its fleet to the Boeing 737-800SF, a converted freighter of the newer 737 generation. By 2022, four of these aircraft had arrived, and the 737-400SFs had already left the fleet by then. At the same time the network grew, including a route to Dhaka in Bangladesh.

2025: the Asiana cargo division

The real turning point came with the merger of the two big South Korean network airlines. Korean Air is taking over Asiana Airlines – and because together they would have controlled a large share of South Korea’s air cargo, competition authorities had concerns. To address them, Asiana promised in late 2023 to sell its cargo business. The European Commission approved the merger under conditions in early 2024 and gave final approval in November 2024.

Air Incheon prevailed as the buyer. In August 2024, Korean Air announced an agreement worth around 470 billion won. The business transferred on August 1, 2025: ten Boeing 747-400 freighters, a Boeing 767-300F, the cargo network and around 800 employees. The workforce thus grew from about 200 to around 1,000 people, and Air Incheon became AirZeta.

The fleet: jumbos and narrowbody freighters

According to common fleet overviews (as of 2025/2026), the AirZeta fleet consists of around 15 freighters. There are no passenger aircraft.

Type	Number (approx.)	Origin	Use	Spotter tip
Boeing 747-400F	6	Asiana	Long-haul Europe, North America	Short hump, nose that swings open
Boeing 747-400BDSF	4	Asiana	Long-haul	Long hump, converted freighter
Boeing 767-300F	1	Asiana	flexible	Twinjet without a row of windows
Boeing 737-800SF	4	Air Incheon	China, Japan, Southeast Asia	Narrowbody with cargo door at front left

The fleet is not young. Most aircraft have two decades or more behind them – for the 747-400F this applies to almost every example worldwide, because Boeing ended production of this version many years ago. For spotters, that makes AirZeta interesting: classic jumbos are becoming rarer even in cargo service.

The single Boeing 767-300F is the fleet’s oddball. If you want to add it to your logbook, you need luck or have to search specifically for its registration. The manufacturer of all types is Boeing.

747-400F or 747-400BDSF? How to tell them apart

At first glance, both versions look the same: four engines, a hump, no row of windows on the main deck. The difference lies in how they came to be – and you can see exactly that on the fuselage.

The most reliable feature is the hump. If you photograph the 747 from the side, you see right away whether it ends shortly behind the cockpit or extends far back. You can find more on the differences between the jumbo generations in the article How to recognize Boeing 747-100 through 747-8 and in the overview of the Boeing 747-400.

How to recognize AirZeta

Because the renaming only happened in 2025 and many aircraft came from Asiana, the fleet’s appearance is in transition. In older photos the same registrations still wear Asiana colors, in newer ones the new airline’s livery. So do not rely on the livery alone.

• Registration: HL at the start of the registration tells you it is South Korea. How registrations are structured is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.
• ICAO code AIH: the clearest identifier on the tracker.
• Type: An HL 747 without a row of windows is either a Korean Air freighter or AirZeta. Asiana itself has had no freighters since August 2025.
• Time of day: Freighters often fly at off-peak times. Plan for the evening hours when taking photos, and read the guide on photographing at night beforehand.

The network: from East Asia to Chicago

According to route overviews from late 2025, AirZeta serves around 30 destinations. The focus is on China and Japan – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo-Narita and Osaka-Kansai are among the most frequently served destinations. Added to that are Southeast Asia with Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok, Central Asia with Almaty and Ulaanbaatar, and the Russian Far East with Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

AirZeta inherited its long-haul network from Asiana. In North America, destinations such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta and New York-JFK are on the schedule. In Europe, the airline flies to Frankfurt, London Stansted, Brussels and Milan Malpensa, among others. Frankfurt is the most frequently served European destination.

Cargo networks are more flexible than passenger schedules. Routes are added or dropped depending on how demand and charter contracts develop. So treat the destinations mentioned as a guide, not as a fixed timetable.

Spotting AirZeta in Germany

For German spotters, Frankfurt is the most important place. According to route overviews from late 2025, AirZeta lands there several times a week with 747 freighters. In Frankfurt, freighters are usually handled in the cargo area away from the passenger terminals – so approach, landing and takeoff are the best opportunities for photos.

A good location for approach and landing photos is the Zeppelinheim viewing platform. Whether the platform suits you at a given moment depends on the runway direction in use. For an overview of all the options, see the plane spotting guide for Frankfurt.

Common mix-ups

• Taking every HL 747 for Korean Air – since 2025, AirZeta also flies 747-400 freighters with South Korean registrations.
• Still logging ex-Asiana freighters as Asiana – after August 1, 2025, they belong to AirZeta, even if older photos show them in Asiana colors.
• Treating AirZeta and Air Incheon as two airlines – it is the same company with a new name and unchanged codes.
• Lumping the 747-400F and 747-400BDSF together – the hump tells you whether a factory-built or converted freighter is in front of you.
• Looking for the 737-800SF in Europe – the narrowbody freighters operate on short-haul routes around Korea, not to Frankfurt.
• Assigning AirZeta to an alliance – Asiana’s Star Alliance membership applied only to passenger operations.

If you want to compare cargo airlines: Cargolux has a similar profile with 747 freighters and long-haul flights to Europe, and Lufthansa Cargo is the German counterpart. For Asian freighters in regional service, take a look at Air Hong Kong.

Conclusion

AirZeta is an airline with two lives. As Air Incheon, it flew small 737 freighters on short-haul routes for a decade; since August 2025, with the acquired Asiana cargo division, it has been operating long-haul. For spotters that means: the 747-400 freighters that used to be logged as Asiana are now an entry of their own – and regularly seen in Frankfurt.