The sky road, which was tightly blocked in the aftermath of Corona 19, is gradually opening, centering on Asian routes such as China.
Although the flight situation on the Americas and Europe routes is still not improving, the fact that the Asian skyway is opening a little is a ``dancing'' for domestic airlines experiencing business difficulties.
According to the airline industry, Korean Air resumed flights to Moscow, Russia, Zhengzhou, China, and Osaka, Japan this month.
Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh route has been increased from 6 times a week to 7 times a week.
Korean Air, which operated 120 flights a week on 30 international routes last month, is operating 124 flights a week on 33 international routes this month.
Compared to last year, when 110 international routes were operated, the flight rate is still only 30%.
In the case of Chinese routes, the number of passengers departing from Incheon becomes full, so there is a high possibility that the number of routes and flights will expand in the future.
Currently, Korean Air operates four routes to China, including Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Guangzhou and Tianjin.
On the 1st of this month, Asiana Airlines resumed its flights from Incheon to Harbin, China after 7 months.
As the route to Chongqing, China, which operated in September was temporarily suspended, there are currently four routes to China, including Changchun, Nanjing and Chengdu.
There are a total of 26 international routes and 78 flights a week.
Asiana Airlines operated a temporary flight from Fukuoka, Japan to Incheon, on the 13th of this month and plans to operate on the 28th.
Low-cost airlines (LCCs) are also striving to restore the sky road by resuming flights to China and Japan one after another or starting new flights.
On the 21st of this month, Jeju Air resumed its flight from Incheon to Harbin in eight months.
The route to Tokyo, Japan, which had been suspended from the beginning of this month due to the low boarding rate, is also expected to resume operation soon as demand is expected to increase.
Air Seoul launched a route to Yantai, China in August this year, followed by a new route from Incheon to Qingdao, China on the 20th of this month.
T'way Air will resume flights from Incheon to Osaka (Kansai) on the 5th of the following month and from Incheon to Tokyo (Narita) on the 6th.
The airlines plan to focus on expanding Asian routes for the time being.
Vietnam-Japan flights are expected to increase as the government agreed to resume major routes with Vietnam and exempt from quarantine measures after entering the country with Japan.
Korean Air, which currently operates only flights from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh to Incheon, is also considering resuming regular round-trip flights.
Although special immigration procedures for companies entering Japan have been agreed, the reason why airlines are hesitating to expand and increase flights to Japan that there is still not much demand for business visits to Japan.
In particular, it is difficult to resume flights to Japan, such as Fukuoka, where many tourists visit, without lifting the measures that the Japanese government restricts Koreans' entry airports to two locations, Tokyo (Narita) and Osaka (Kansai).
Airlines looking to improve profitability by expanding international routes are expecting a'travel bubble'.
This is a cross-border agreement that exempts certain tourists or travelers from quarantine measures.
As Korea is known to be discussing the conclusion of the travel bubble with Hong Kong and Singapore, it is predicted that the demand for overseas travel may increase if quarantine is exempted after entering the country.