SEOUL– Passenger traffic at Incheon International Airport, South Korea’s main gateway, is expected to be significantly lower than forecast during this year’s peak summer vacation season, officials said Friday, apparently due to the recent resurgence of COVID-19.
Incheon International Airport Corp. had previously predicted that a daily average of about 100,000 passengers would visit the Incheon airport this weekend, which belongs to the peak summer vacation season.
But around 70,000 passengers are expected to actually use the airport per day on the weekend — 65,779 on Friday, 69,032 on Saturday and 70,717 on Sunday — the corporation said, citing booking data.
Thus, the actual daily number of airport passengers during the peak summer travel season will likely be about 20,000 to 30,000 less than forecast, the corporation noted.
It speculated that the lower-than-expected passenger traffic at the Incheon airport may have been affected by the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, and low-cost carriers have also reduced flights on some international routes.
On Friday, South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases exceeded 100,000 for the fourth straight day amid a wave of infections driven by a highly infectious omicron variant.
Source: Yonhap News Agency