Korean Air saw passenger traffic grow 11.9 % in June

Korean Air saw passenger traffic grow 11.9 % in June, thanks to strong international traffic, which was up 12.3 %.

The total revenue passenger kilometer (RPK) - the distance flown by paying passengers - reached 4.357 billion RPK last month, up 11.9 % from 3.893 billion RPK recorded in the same month last year. Total passengers carried during the month were 1.793 million, up 7.3 % year on year.

"We are pleased to report such strong growth in passenger traffic last month with high international demand. The Memorial Day weekend last month also boosted domestic traffic, especially our service to Jeju," said Mr. Jong hee Lee, the president and COO of Korean Air.

Total international passenger traffic grew 12.3 % year on year to 4.048 billion RPK, with traffic between Korean and China increasing 28 % to 209.5 million RPK. However passenger demand in Japan operations was down slightly by 2.8 % to 233.9 million RPK due to the Korea-Japan conflict.

Domestic passenger traffic rose 6.8 % year on year to 308.4 million RPK.

As June is the low season for freight business, Korean Air carried 1.9 % less cargo last month, with 677.2 million freight tonne-kilometer (FTK). FTKs for Japan and the US declined 3 % and 5.6 % year on year respectively, because of the weak outbound demand from the regions. South East Asia also saw FTK dropped 21.3 % to 72.6 million FTK.

However, with increasing capacity to China, cargo traffic to Korea's biggest neighbour grew 57 % to 32.6 million FTK. Freight volume to Europe also grew 9.8 % to 206.1 million FT