13% fewer passengers fly to Japan in July

The number of passengers flying from South Korea to Japan significantly decreased this month amid ongoing trade tensions between the two countries, data showed Wednesday. 

The Transport Ministry data showed that from July 16 to 31, a total of 467,249 passengers departed for Japan from Incheon International Airport, down about 13.4 percent or 72,411 passengers compared with June 16 to 30. 

Amid an intensifying nationwide boycott targeting Japanese goods and travel to Japan, Korea’s flagship carriers and budget carriers are feeling the pressure and suspending or scaling back their Japanese routes.

On Monday Korea’s largest flagship air carrier, Korean Air, said it would suspend its Busan-Sapporo route from Sept. 3. 

The company said it was also considering the possibility of assigning smaller airplanes to certain other Japanese routes.

Asiana Airlines, the second-largest flagship carrier here, said it would cut the number of flights to Osaka, Okinawa and Fukuoka and run smaller airplanes along those routes from mid-September, such as the B767 or A321. 

It added that the reservation rate for Japanese routes departing in August and September had inched down 2 percentage points year-on-year. 

Budget air carrier T’way said it would suspend its Daegu-Kumamoto and Busan-Saga routes from September, citing diminished demand. The air carrier scrapped its Muan-Oita route July 24.

Easter Jet plans to cease operating its Busan-Sapporo and Busan-Osaka routes from September.

Market insiders have predicted that passenger travel to Japan would decline further in view of worsening anti-Japanese sentiment among the Korean public. 

“Reservation rates for flights to Japan’s popular tourist destinations such as Okinawa and Sapporo have dropped sharply from the third week of July. (If the current trade tensions continue), the number of passengers traveling to Japan will further decline in September and October, as reservations for such flights are made in July and August,” an industry insider told The Korea Herald. 

Earlier this month, Japan announced export restrictions affecting key high-tech materials it supplied to Korea, apparently to retaliate for Korean Supreme Court rulings last year in favor of Koreans forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II. Japan is poised to exclude Korea from the whitelist of trusted export countries this Friday.

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)