Korean LCCs boost travel demand to global tourist hubs

South Korean low-cost carriers (LCCs), including Air Premia Inc. and Air Busan Co., have been expanding into underserved smaller cities, but also driving travel demand to major tourist destinations.

Air Premia said on Monday it has carried 835,000 passengers on its Incheon-San Francisco route as of the end of April since launching the service on May 15 of last year. Incheon International Airport is a main gateway to South Korea. The carrier holds a 10.5% share of passenger traffic on the corridor.

Its entry into the route contributed to a 22.6% on-year increase in passenger traffic between the two destinations, up from 689,000 passengers in the year-earlier period.

It has also driven a surge in demand for multi-city itineraries across North America.

Air Premia said that 11,787 passengers booked multi-segment tickets such as flying into one US city and returning from another in the US between the West and East Coasts since it launched the San Francisco route.

That marked a tenfold increase from 1,122 during the same period of last year. The airline said the figures reflect growing demand for broader US travel linking cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Air Busan, an LCC arm of South Korea's No. 2 full-service carrier Asiana Airlines Inc., marked the 15th anniversary of its Busan-Osaka route on April 26. Cumulative passenger traffic on the route has reached 3.4 million as of the end of March.

Another budget carrier T’way Air Co. celebrated the second anniversary of its Incheon-Sydney route in December. It has carried 215,000 passengers between the two cities since December 2022, maintaining an average load factor of 90%.

Its launch of the route has boosted travel demand to Australia. Passenger numbers on the Incheon-Sydney route doubled to 67,923 in November 2023, up from 31,645 the year prior.

Write to Yeonhee Kim at yhkim@hankyung.com