North Korea cracks open the gate as flights to China resume

Pyongyang conducts its first passenger flight since suspending overseas air travel in January 2020 over pandemic fears.

North Korea conducts its first passenger flight since suspending overseas air travel in January 2020 over pandemic fears. Picture: Getty Images

North Korea has resumed air travel with China after a hiatus of more than three years, a milestone development for Kim Jong-un’s regime, which is starting to restore connections with the ­outside world.

A passenger flight operated by North Korea’s state-run Air Koryo departed Pyongyang on Tuesday morning and arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport. In the afternoon, a return Air Koryo flight left for the North Korean capital.

A day earlier, China had confirmed a restoration of Air Koryo flights between the two countries.

Air Koryo flights to and from Beijing were scheduled for Monday, though both were cancelled for unknown reasons.

The Air Koryo aircraft was a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-204, a narrow-body jet that can carry roughly 200 passengers. Close Kim regime watchers expect that North Korea will make bringing government staff and citizens home a priority before letting in outsiders. On Tuesday, many of the travellers standing in line to check in for the Air Koryo flight to Pyongyang wore pins featuring the North Korean flag, according to South Korea’s semi-official Yonhap News Agency.

The Kim regime had suspended international commercial flights and sealed off its borders in January 2020, when Covid-19 cases began to emerge in neighbouring China. With a decrepit healthcare system lacking modern equipment, Pyongyang adopted a maximalist zero-Covid strategy, halting foreign travel and even blocking its own citizens from returning home. Kim, the 39-year-old dictator, declared the virus a great disaster.

For years, the approach appeared successful. But in May 2022, North Korea admitted to its first large-scale Covid-19 outbreak, when nearly one-fifth of the country’s population fell ill – including Kim himself. Within months, the secretive regime declared victory over Covid-19. Kim touted it then as the greatest miracle in global health. But North Korea hadn’t done much until recently to match the rest of the world’s reopening.

Late last month, the Kim regime welcomed its first foreign delegations – from Russia and China – to attend a major military parade. Then, a group of North Korean taekwondo athletes ­earlier this month attended an international competition in Kazakhstan, having travelled by cross-border bus, sleeper train and a flight from Beijing.

Air Koryo is North Korea’s only international airline. On the company’s website, the only locations listed for online reservations are Pyongyang, Beijing and Vladivostok, Russia – a traditional stronghold for North Korea’s overseas migrant workers. An Air Koryo representative in Vladivostok confirmed that flights from that Russian city to Pyongyang would resume on Friday, according to a report in NK News, a website specialising in North Korean affairs.

Separately, North Korea has alerted Japan of its plans to conduct a satellite launch between Thursday and the end of the month. Pyongyang failed to launch its spy satellite into space on May 31, with the debris crashing into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China.

The Wall Street Journal