Air Busan to open Incheon-Qingdao route next month

Air Busan said Tuesday it will open the Incheon-Qingdao route next month to preemptively prepare for a recovering demand amid eased travel restrictions. Air Busan will deploy the 232-seat A321neo jet to provide one flight a week on the Incheon-Qingdao route from Sept. 2, the company said. The low-cost carrier currently offers one flight a week on the Busan-Qingdao route. It operates no other routes to China. Air Seoul, another budget carrier unit of Asiana, is the only carrier which has offered the Incheon-Qingdao route amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. In July, Air Busan opened three international routes ― Busan-Nah Trang, Incheon-Da Nang, and Incheon-Fukuoka ― and reopened the previously suspended four routes from Busan to Ulan Bator, Osaka, Cebu, and Kota Kinabalu of Malaysia. On Jan. 23, Air Busan began to offer one flight per week on the Busan-Saipan route following a travel bubble agreement with Saipan, a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar COVID-19 situations.<br/>