Eastar Jet Will Add 126 Flights During Next Month's Chuseok Holiday Period

Illustration of the Eastar Jet fleet. (Wikimedia Commons/Masakatsu Ukon)

JAKARTA - South Korea's low-cost airline, Eastar Jet, announced plans to operate 126 additional flights during this year's Chuseok holiday period with a total of 24,000 additional seats.

The airline said it plans to improve flight services from October 2-12 to accommodate increased travel requests during that period.

"We added flights to popular destinations to address the shortage of seats during the holidays and gave tourists more options," said an Eastar Jet official, quoted by The Korea Times September 1.

The expanded schedule includes 18 flights from Incheon to Da Nang in Vietnam and 14 to Nha Trang, as well as 22 flights to Sapporo in Japan and 22 to Taipei.

Meanwhile, from Busan, the airline will add six flights to Phu Quoc in Vietnam and 12 toung Mai, Thailand.

As for domestic routes, Eastar Jet will add 32 flights that will operate between Gimpo and Busan.

With this temporary addition, the number of seats available on the affected route will almost double from 25,638 to 49,356.

This year's Chuseok Holiday (October 5-7), which coincides with the National Foundation Day (3) and Hangul Day (9) this year, could be a long holiday of up to 10 days, from October 3 to 12, if the South Korean Government decides the 10th as a holiday.

President Lee Jae-myung himself last month called for proactive measures to increase domestic demand over the Chuseok holiday period, as officials fear longer holidays could push more out travel than local spending and reduce weekdays.

It is feared that the determination of holidays on October 10 could reduce domestic demand and have a negative impact on exports and industrial products due to reduced working days.

Under Korean law, the government can set a temporary public holiday as needed. In recent years, this has sometimes been done around major holidays such as the Chinese New Year or Chuseok to extend rest time and spur domestic shopping.

Earlier this year, January 27, it was designated as a temporary holiday during the Chinese New Year period, bringing the total holiday to six days.

According to a SkyScanner survey of 1,000 South Korean tourists last month, about half of respondents chose short-distance travel overseas such as Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand as their destination for Chuseok this year, quoted from Meil Business Newspaper.

Seventeen-seven percent of respondents said they were willing to travel domestically or abroad during the upcoming holiday season.

According to flight search data SkyScanner, Japan (43.1 percent) is the most popular country for Korean tourists during this year's Chuseok holiday. Vietnam (13.2 percent), China (9.6 percent), Thailand (7.5 percent) and Taiwan (6.2 percent).

Fukuoka (20.2 percent) is the most popular city in Japan. Followed by Osaka (18.3 percent), Tokyo (15.4 percent), Bangkok (8.9 percent), Taipei (8 percent) in Taiwan and Shanghai (6.6 percent) in China.