Flights between Korea and China will increase by 70 per week. This will make it possible to add services on popular routes such as Incheon-Shanghai·Guangzhou, and routes to China from regional airports are also expected to expand.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 4th that, at the Korea·China aviation talks held in Seoul on the 27∼28 of last month, the two countries agreed to increase traffic rights by 70 weekly frequencies.

Passenger traffic rights will rise from 608 per week to 664 per week, an increase of 56. Cargo traffic rights will rise from 54 per week to 68 per week, an increase of 14.

This is the first expansion of Korea·China traffic rights in seven years since 2019. In the first quarter of this year, about 4.39 million passengers used Korea·China routes, surpassing the pre COVID-19 level (4.14 million in the first quarter of 2019), and exchanges between the two countries continue to expand.

Accordingly, it has become possible to add flights on popular routes such as Incheon-Shanghai·Guangzhou. In particular, on the Incheon-Shanghai route, the average load factor last year reached 89%, close to full capacity. In the airline industry, when the average load factor exceeds 85%, the supply of seats is regarded as absolutely insufficient relative to demand.

Traffic rights dedicated to regional airports that connect domestic regional airports such as Busan·Cheongju with ten cities in China, including Guangzhou·Chengdu·Shenzhen·Chongqing·Kunming·Xian·Urumqi·Harbin·Shenyang·Yanji, also increased by 14 per week.

For cargo flights, traffic rights connecting major cargo hub airports in China such as Tianjin·Zhengzhou·Ezhou·Hefei with domestic airports were increased by 14 per week.