Korea's international air passenger traffic rose 8.3 percent in January from a year earlier on a growing number of people visiting the country for vacation, the government said Tuesday.
The number of international air passengers came to some 3.93 million last month, the highest number for the month of January, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs. The previous record for January was 3.63 million set last year.
The ministry attributed the growth partly to a rise in the number of Koreans going overseas, but also to an increase in the number of foreign tourists and visitors coming to the country.
"International air passengers to and from most parts of the world increased in January due to a rise in the number of tourists during the winter break and China's new year holidays," it said in a press release.
Passengers to and from Southeast Asian countries surged 17.8 percent on-year with those to and from Europe also growing 9.7 percent.
Of the total, 66.3 percent used flights offered by South Korea's flag carriers with the number of passengers on the country's low-cost carriers growing nearly 70 percent on-year to account for 6.3 percent of the total, the ministry said.
The number of passengers on domestic flights rose 16.2 percent from a year earlier to 1.67 million.
The number of domestic and international flights to and from South Korea gained 7.3 percent from a year earlier to 44,897. (Yonhap)