Air Busan Overhauls Corporate Benefits Program... "Offering Additional Discounts"

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Air Busan announced on the 5th that it will enhance customer benefits through the revamp of its corporate loyalty program, a preferential system for frequent business travelers.

Air Busan's corporate loyalty program is a partnership discount program that offers discounts to employees of corporations, public institutions, schools, and other legally registered organizations when flying on domestic routes (Gimpo-Busan, Gimpo-Ulsan).

Since its launch in 2008, the program has been used to reduce corporate travel expenses and provide airline fare discounts as employee welfare benefits. Currently, about 23,000 companies and approximately 76,000 employees are enrolled.

With this program revamp, Air Busan explained that discounts can be applied on any flight regardless of weekdays or weekends, or low and peak seasons. Previously, the fixed discount system did not allow discounts on special fare tickets with higher real-time discount rates, but the revamped program changes this to an additional discount system that guarantees extra discounts.

The number of tiers based on usage frequency has been reduced from four to three, with differentiated benefits for each tier. The ‘Air Busan 30’ tier, granted to the top 30 companies by usage performance, receives an additional 10% discount benefit.

The ‘Air Busan 60’ tier, given to the next 60 companies ranked 31st to 90th, receives an additional 5% discount, while the ‘WELCOME’ tier, assigned to other companies and organizations, offers an additional 3% discount benefit.

Practical benefits have also been strengthened. Considering the convenience of business travelers with flexible schedules, members in the top two tiers are fully exempt from itinerary change fees when modifying flight reservations. This fee waiver applies not only to online changes via mobile but also to changes made at the airport.

However, for so-called no-show customers who do not change or cancel their reservation up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure and fail to board, a reservation breach penalty fee of 15,000 KRW will be charged before waiving the change fee.

An Air Busan official said, “We expect the revamped corporate loyalty program to be more practical and convenient for members,” adding, “We recommend companies and organizations that have not yet joined the program to sign up quickly and enjoy many benefits.”