you do realize that KE codeshared with JL on flights to Japan even when DL still operated NRT-ICN service, don't you?
KE and JL extensively codeshare even today.
further, there is precisely ONE destination which DL carries via ICN from the US that KE serves but other DL partners in Asia do not - PUS.
it accounts for a fraction of the total traffic on DL's US-ICN flights.
like AS, KE decided not to play ball with DL, DL has started its own flights which are doing very well, and KE just like AS can do all it wants to try and fight back - but it is clear that they are indeed the ones that have been hurt and no other partner can provide for them what they have given up without that partner giving something else up as well.
KE and AS both know full well that in order for a partnership with AA to work, AA has to do give up what DL wasn't willing to do.
If AA believes that routing traffic over ICN is better than over NRT or HKG, then it will impact their own partnerships - and the development of AA's own transpacific system.
further, KE's real problem is that it is being boxed in by the Chinese airlines and the ME3, each of which are competing more effectively for traffic than KE.
ICN is built around huge volumes of flow traffic.
Manufacturing in Asia is no different from air transportation - there is always someone waiting to replace you as the lowest cost producer and there is someone who is or can be the largest producer who can finish you off pretty easily
KE is increasingly being backed into a corner. The AA-KE relationship is simply a means to try to mitigate the next obvious steps.
