Int'l air passenger traffic rises 10% in 1st quarter

Korea's international air passenger traffic reached 12.51 million in the first three months of this year, up 10 percent from 11.38 million in the same period last year, the government said Tuesday.

Officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport attributed the increase to a surge in the number of overseas Korean travellers and an increase of foreign visitors caused by the K-pop fever abroad.

The total passengers both on international and domestic flights amounted at 17.21 million during the first quarter, up 5.6 percent from 16.30 million a year earlier.

If such a trend continues, the number of passengers on international and domestic flights is expected to reach 70 million this year, the officials said.

Passengers on domestic flights decreased 4.4 percent to 4.7 million over the cited period because of heavy snowfalls and a cut of flights by large airline companies.

More passengers used budget carriers. Passengers of budget carriers on international routes accounted for 9.4 percent of the total, up 3.1 percentage points from a year earlier, while those on domestic flights constituted 47.3 percent, up 4.3 percentage points.

By Josephine Liu Yan Yee

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com