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While things are slowly starting to open up around the country, including Gimhae International Airport, it may actually become harder to fly internationally in and out of Busan.
A report in the Kukje Ilbo states that six foreign airlines have already closed their offices at Gimhae, including Thai Airways, Cathay Pacific, Pan Pacific Air, and Japan Airlines who all merged with their company’s parent operations at Incheon International Airport.
While the local travel industry is hoping to recover after nearly 20 months of closure, it may take a considerable amount of time before flight schedules return to pre-pandemic normal.
In that case, it may only be only local carriers and LCC’s who are operating international flights, which would cause a lot of international travel to return to having to fly out of Incheon.
Travel experts noted that it may be like returning to 1980s Korea when all international travel was done from Gimpo Airport and that the companies may only return when there is a high demand for overseas travel.
So far, Air Busan has scheduled flights to Guam and Saipan starting this month, while Jeju Air also has a flight scheduled to Guam beginning next month.
Finnair has also said that they plan to begin flights from Busan to Helsinki beginning in March next year.
