Korea's air passenger traffic surges nearly 20% in 2024 on overseas travel

Korea's air passenger traffic jumped sharply from a year earlier in 2024, nearly reaching the pre-pandemic level on increased overseas travel, data showed Sunday. The number of airline passengers at Korean airports came to more than 120m, up 19.5% from about 100.5m tallied in 2023, according to the data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The number represents 97.3% of the record 123.36m posted in 2019. The number had dipped to 29.5% of the record figure in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, before recovering to 81.5% of the 2019 tally in 2023. The sharp increase last year was largely attributed to a rise in the number of international passengers to and from Korea, which jumped 30.2% on-year to some 88.9m, while domestic passengers gained 3.3% to 31.13m over the cited period, the data showed. By destination, passengers to and from Japan spiked 29.7 on-year to over 25m, apparently helped by the weak Japanese currency.<br/>