Nearly All Flights to Japan Suspended

Korean Weather has suspended most flights to Japan except the Incheon-Narita route together with all flights to Australia.

Korea's major flag carrier on March 6 announced the suspension of most routes to Japan except seven Incheon-Narita flights weekly from Monday until March 28. In addition, it canceled its four every week Incheon-Sydney flights until March 14. The flag carrier is going to decide whether to increase the suspension according to future developments.

Asiana Airlines also decided to suspend all routes to Japan from Monday and had already suspended all Australia flights on March 6. This brought down the operating charge of overseas flights by both flag carriers to a vanishing ten percent of the fee prior to the coronavirus outbreak.

Korean Air's overseas flights dwindled by an astounding 83.2 percent since the outbreak of the coronavirus. The quantity of its weekly intercontinental flights dropped 72 percent from 918 to 257 as of March 6 even prior to the cancellation of flights to Japan and Australia. If they're included, the operating charge of its foreign flights stands at only 17 percent.

This is also the case with Asiana, where international flights have decreased from 72 to 34. The troubled carrier declined to provide detailed figures. 

Budget carriers have already been strike even harder because the majority of their international flights concentrate on nearby countries.

EastarJet and Oxygen Busan suspended almost all flights to Japan start Monday and today operate zero international flights. Weather Seoul suspended the Incheon-Takamatsu way on March 2 because of the dwindling demand, thus closing down its overseas business.

Jin Air flow and T'way Air are as well suspending all their five and six routes to Japan, while Jeju Air is suspending eight of its 10 except Narita and Osaka.

Customer service centers are actually deluged with calls asking for cancellations and refunds. An airline staffer said, "Possibly if indeed they wait for a lot more than an hour, consumers will find it difficult to complete." Occasionally, it takes greater than a month to have a refund due to a rush of requests.

Customers will get a 100 percent refund if airlines suspend flights.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2.71 million travellers used Korean flag carriers for worldwide flights go on month, down an impressive 46.8 percent on-year and about 350,000 less than the number of travellers (3.05 million) for household flights through the same period.

The International Air Transportation Association said the other day that the spread of coronavirus could cost global airlines US$113 billion in sales.