Business and tourism must be booming in North Korea, because the country is seeing service from a second international airline!
Air China resumes once weekly Beijing to Pyongyang route
Air China has announced that it’s resuming flights between Beijing (PEK) and Pyongyang (FNJ). The once weekly flight to North Korea will operate with the following schedule:
CA121 Beijing to Pyongyang departing 8:05AM arriving 11:00AM
CA122 Pyongyang to Beijing departing 12:00PM arriving 12:55PM
The flight will be operated on Mondays in both directions using a Boeing 737-700, which features 128 seats, including eight business class seats and 120 economy class seats. The 488-mile flight is blocked at 1hr55min in each direction.
Currently North Korea is primarily served by world class airline Air Koryo, often regarded as one of the world’s finest airlines (in the annual Cairo Airport Quality Awards).
Air Koryo currently flies from Pyongyang to Beijing (PEK), Chongjin (RGO), Hamhung (DSO), Samjiyon (YJS), Shenyang (SHE), Vladivostok (VVO), and Wonsan (WOS). The country also has service from Nordwind Airlines, which flies from Moscow (SVO).
This marks a service resumption after six years
Air China last served North Korea in 2020, around the start of the coronavirus pandemic. China is of course known for the extent to which it shut down at the start of the pandemic, while North Korea… well, I believe they were claiming they never had coronavirus?
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson claims that these flights will facilitate friendly exchanges between people of the two countries. Interestingly the announcement of the flight service resumption comes just a week after it was announced that train links between the two countries would be restored as well.
China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, and an important source of economic and political support for the isolated country. So it seems like this increase in service is part of a larger effort to boost ties.
Air China flying to North Korea simplifies connections greatly, since Air China has more partnerships and interline agreements than Air Koryo. The catch is that there’s not actually much demand for travel to North Korea, given the extent to which citizens are forbidden from traveling, while the country continues to be largely closed off to tourism, aside from a small number of organized tours from “friendly” countries.
If you’re going to visit North Korea, I feel like Air Koryo is very much part of the cultural experience, no? So I can’t imagine this flight will be full at all, but instead, it’s presumably operating for political reasons, and maybe to transport some amount of cargo.
Bottom line
Air China will be resuming capital-to-capital flights between China and North Korea, with a once weekly Beijing to Pyongyang flight. This marks the resumption of a route for the airline that previously operated about six years ago, at the start of the pandemic. Air Koryo already operates this route, though it’s rare to see service from foreign airlines in North Korea, so I’d consider this to be pretty noteworthy.
I can’t imagine the demand for this flight is huge, so presumably this is primarily political, but perhaps there’s also some amount of cargo demand.
What do you make of Air China resuming North Korea flights?
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