North Korea Prepares for Possible Resumption of International Flights with Unusual Aircraft Maintenance

Recent satellite images show an “unusual” level of aircraft maintenance at North Korea’s main airport, a monitoring group said, a sign that the country may be preparing for a resumption of international flights.

North Korea sealed its borders in early 2020 as part of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, canceling all plane departures abroad as well as all arrivals. While it has allowed some cross-border trade by rail with China and recently allowed the neighboring state’s new ambassador to travel to Pyongyang, it has yet to give the go-ahead for a return to regular international travel.

Several airliners operated by the North Korean company Air Koryo have been “circulating in maintenance hangars” at Sunan International Airport in the North Korean capital since early May, noted the American surveillance website. North Korea 38North, referring to satellite images.

Such aircraft have only very rarely undergone similar maintenance there in the past three years, he insisted, stressing that no cross-border air transport activity was “supposed to have taken place” during the entire period of the pandemic.

“It is unusual that so many” planes have benefited from such maintenance “in such a short time”, continued the site, noting nevertheless that this did not guarantee any immediate or short-term resumption of travel by the way of the air.

Speculation about the possible restart of international passenger air travel swelled after China’s new ambassador arrived in Pyongyang to take up his official duties there last month, more than two years after his appointment.

A Chinese tour operator could for its part prepare to relaunch tourist circuits in North Korea in mid-June, the specialized website NK News in Seoul believes. He added, however, that “false reopening rumors have been spreading” near the inter-Korean boundary line “for months.”

International tourism is “an area that has always attracted great interest from Pyongyang because it can easily earn foreign currency,” Hong Min, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Tourism, told AFP. ‘National unity. According to him, it does not seem “wacky” to think that certain tourist trips could resume, starting this year.