Domestic Airport Passengers Decrease for the First Time in 12 Years Last Year... Down 59%

First Time Since Financial Crisis... 58.8% Decrease to 65.02 Million
April Airport Passenger Numbers Hit Monthly Low
Passenger Numbers by Airport: Jeju, Gimpo, Incheon Order

On the 14th, the departure hall of Terminal 2 at Incheon International Airport is deserted due to the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] Due to the impact of COVID-19, the number of passengers using 15 domestic airports decreased for the first time in 12 years since the global financial crisis.

According to the National Statistical Portal of Statistics Korea on the 1st, the total number of passengers at 15 airports nationwide last year was 65,027,063. This is a decrease of 92,646,381 passengers (58.8%) compared to the previous year (157,673,444).

This is the first time in 12 years since 2008 that the number of airport passengers has decreased compared to the previous year. At that time, the number of airport passengers was 69,952,693, down 1.7% from the previous year. Since then, as the economy recovered and overseas travelers increased, the number of airport passengers continued to rise for 11 consecutive years from 2009 to 2019.

Last year, the number of airport passengers sharply dropped from over 100 million to the 60 million range, remaining at the 2006 level (67,639,679). In particular, the number of airport passengers began to decline sharply from February, reaching a monthly low in April. The numbers fell from 13.45 million in January to 7.06 million in February and 2.57 million in April, which is about 20% compared to the same month of the previous year.

Afterwards, as the spread of COVID-19 slowed down, the number of passengers recovered to the 5 million range from July, but dropped again to the 3 million range in September and December when the 2nd and 3rd waves began.

The airports with the highest number of passengers were ▲Jeju Airport with 21.05 million and ▲Gimpo Airport with 17.45 million. Due to difficulties in overseas travel or business trips, the number of passengers at Incheon Airport sharply decreased to 12.05 million, which is about one-sixth of the previous year (71.17 million).

Park Seongbong, a researcher at Hana Financial Investment, analyzed, "The key to the recovery of passenger demand is the stable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines domestically and internationally to form herd immunity. Since forming herd immunity is expected to take considerable time, the possibility of a rapid short-term recovery in demand is limited."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.