Flights at Incheon airport expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels next summer

Passengers wait to depart from Incheon International Airport Terminal One on Nov. 7, 2022. [YONHAP]

The number of flights at Incheon International Airport, the gateway to Seoul, in next year's summer season is expected to exceed the pre-pandemic levels, the airport's operator said Monday.

Incheon International Airport Corporation said the increased flights scheduled for the next summer season from the end of March to the end of October were decided at a recent slot conference organized by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Melbourne, Australia.

The Incheon airport was given 263,004 slots for the 2023 summer season, marking a surge of 265 percent from 99,077 slots this year, the corporation said.

Compared with 233,650 slots assigned in 2019 prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, next year's figure still marks a rise of 12.5 percent, it noted.

A slot refers to the departure or arrival time of an aircraft and the number of slot assignments refers to the number of times the aircraft is permitted to operate at an airport.

Yonhap