Air traffic in South Korea’s territorial airspace jumped 45 percent in 2023 from a year earlier on unleashed pent-up demand for travel following years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Transport Ministry said.

The number of airplanes that flew over the Korean airspace reached 780,635 last year, up from 539,788 a year ago, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement.

But last year’s air traffic over Korea’s airspace has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when the corresponding figure was 842,041 planes, the statement said.

Given the rapid pace of recovery since August last year, air traffic over the national airspace is on track to exceed 2019 levels, the official said. (Yonhap)