The number of foreign railway passengers in South Korea has recently surpassed 600,000 per month, indicating a significant surge in demand. This increase is particularly concentrated on the Seoul-Busan route, where congestion at Gimhae Airport, the gateway to Busan, has intensified due to limited flight slots. With the opening of Gadeokdo New Airport pushed back to 2035, calls for structural solutions to distribute foreign railway demand are growing.
According to Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL), the number of foreign passengers using domestic railways jumped from 3.44 million in 2023 to 6.06 million last year, marking a 76% increase over three years. In the first quarter of this year alone, 1.693 million foreign passengers utilized domestic rail services, a 46.5% rise compared to the same period last year. The monthly foreign railway passenger count first exceeded 600,000 in October 2024, and the trend of increased foreign travelers during September and October suggests that this year could see record annual numbers.
Demand for foreign railway transport is heavily concentrated on specific routes. KORAIL's statistics show that the top two routes—Seoul to Busan (15.2%) and Busan to Seoul (15.1%)—account for a combined 30.3% of foreign passenger traffic. This is nearly ten times higher than the third-ranked route from Dongdaegu to Seoul (1.6%). Notably, Seoul Station (27.4%) and Busan Station (20.0%) together account for almost half of all foreign railway passengers.
This trend is attributed to long-haul tourists from North America and Europe arriving at Incheon International Airport and then taking the KTX to Busan, creating a de facto travel pattern. Foreign travelers heading to Busan or nearby areas are often forced to transit through Seoul, leading to a bottleneck.
The limitations at Gimhae Airport are cited as a key issue. As a military airport sharing runways, Gimhae Airport has a structurally limited number of takeoff and landing slots. The average number of international arrivals is about 100 per day, which is only one-fifth of the volume at Incheon Airport (approximately 500). Additional restrictions on late-night flights further complicate the establishment of new long-haul direct routes to North America and Europe. In the first quarter of this year, foreign arrivals at Gimhae Airport reached 430,000, a 45.5% increase from the previous year. The government's proposed solution is the Gadeokdo New Airport, but its opening has been delayed from the originally planned 2029 to 2035 due to ground stabilization issues.
The surge in foreign passengers has led to competition for limited seats between domestic and international travelers. Lee Jang-ho, a professor at Korea National Transport University, noted, "If large events like BTS concerts coincide, the bottleneck will become even more pronounced. The structural issues at Gimhae Airport mean it cannot accommodate the demand directly, leading to ongoing problems."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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