The carrier plans to connect underserved islands and provide essential medical transport services, positioning itself as the only airline capable of serving various island airports.
As a Regional Air Mobility (RAM) operator led by CEO Choi Yong-duck, SUM Air will initially deploy its first brand-new ATR 72-600 aircraft on flights from Sacheon in South Gyeongsang Province between March and April, and will sequentially expand routes to Ulsan and islands such as Tsushima, Ulleung, Heuksan and Baengnyeong, Choi said.
At the delivery ceremony, attendees included CEO Choi, ATR (Avions de Transport Régional) Chief Commercial Officer (COO) Alexis Vidal, ATR Sales Director Jean-Daniel, as well as airport officials, government representatives and investors.
SUM Air's latest ATR 72-600 series aircraft, equipped with turboprop engines, is optimized for short runways of around 1,200 meters and for airfields exposed to environmental constraints such as frequent bird strikes, making it well-suited to many of Korea's island airports and small regional airfields.
Highlighting short runways at future island airports such as Ulleung and Heuksan, as well as at foreign regional airports like Japan's Tsushima Island where narrow runways prevent larger jets from operating, Choi stressed that SUM Air will avoid direct competition with major low-cost carriers (LCCs) and instead concentrate on niche regional markets where smaller aircraft have a clear advantage.
Ulleung Island has long been considered a transport-isolated region, and the burden of that isolation has fallen squarely on its roughly 9,000 residents. With no branch of a major commercial bank on the island, residents must commit to at least an overnight stay on the mainland just to complete basic banking tasks, and even two nights are often not enough when combining multiple errands. Each trip to the mainland entails several days of accommodation costs and lost time.
To address these challenges, the Korean government is investing about 600 billion won ($408 million) to build a new airport on Ulleung Island. Construction began in July 2020 and, as of October 2025, the project had passed 70 percent completion, with foundational work largely finished. The airport, slated to open in 2027, will feature a 1,200-meter runway—too short for typical narrow-body jets like the Airbus A320 or Boeing 737, which generally require around 1,800 meters for safe operations. SUM Air is then currently the only airline in Korea able to operate at Ulleung Airport once it opens.
Starting with Sacheon, the airline intends to gradually increase scheduled services to small regional airports across the country, thereby knitting together a dense network that reduces transport blind spots.
Most inhabited Korean islands have at least a public health subcenter, while smaller islands often have a simple public health post. At these facilities, public health doctors and nurses, or in some cases only nurses, handle basic care such as monitoring blood pressure and blood sugar, administering vaccinations and issuing simple prescriptions. However, when residents require specialized or emergency treatment, they must still travel to urban hospitals on the mainland—a journey that can be particularly difficult in remote islands where ferries operate only once or twice a day.
In urgent cases, air ambulances such as doctor helicopters may be deployed, but operations are limited by weather conditions and high costs, leaving many islanders exposed to delays in receiving critical care. To help fill this gap, SUM Air has formed a shareholder partnership with Seoul Bumin Hospital, enabling the airline to support regional medical transport services for island residents who need specialized treatment.
"We are equipping our new ATR aircraft from the manufacturer with an option that allows us to fold the third row of seats and install a stretcher," Choi explained. He added that when SUM Air begins serving destinations like Baengnyeong, the airline expects significant demand for emergency transport of Marine Corps personnel, with similar needs anticipated for Ulleung and Heuksan. Noting that Ulleung effectively has no full-service hospital, Choi underscored the airline's commitment to providing regional medical transport services to island communities.
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