Kagoshima Airport Connected with Seoul by Daily Flights of Korean Air Lines, Jeju Air

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:15 JST, September 21, 2024

KIRISHIMA, Kagoshima — Regular flights between Kagoshima and Seoul are now being offered daily amid an increase in the number of passengers visiting from South Korea. Jeju Air, a South Korean low-cost carrier, this month resumed flights between Kagoshima and Incheon. In addition, Korean Air Lines has increased its number of flights from three round trips a week to five.

From October 2023, after COVID-19 restrictions were eased, Korean Air resumed round-trip flights three times a week, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The airline recently began flight service also on Mondays and Thursdays. With the services of Korean Air and Jeju Air combined, flights between Kagoshima and Incheon are now running on a daily basis.

On Sept. 2, Korean Air’s first additional flight carrying passengers from Incheon arrived at Kagoshima Airport in Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture.

A 22-year-old South Korean university student who arrived on the service said, “I want to eat kurobuta pork and tour spots in Kyushu with a rental car.”

According to the prefectural government, about 58,000 South Koreans visited and stayed in the prefecture last year, about 40% of the number in 2019 before the COVID-19 crisis.