BEIJING/SEOUL, Aug 22 (Reuters) – An Air Koryo flight from Pyongyang landed in Beijing early on Tuesday for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began in 2020, as North Korea cracks open its border to some passenger travel.
The flight, JS151, arrived at 9:17 a.m. (0117 GMT), shortly ahead of its scheduled time. It wasn’t immediately clear who was aboard, but Western tour companies that operated in North Korea said it appeared to be a special flight that would on the return carry back North Koreans who had been trapped in China by the years of border closures.
The flight comes amid a slow reopening for one of the world’s most politically and economically isolated countries.
Cargo train and ship traffic has slowly increased over the past year, but North Korea has only just begun to allow some international passenger travel.
In a first since before the pandemic, Chinese and Russian government delegations flew to Pyongyang last month and last week buses carrying North Korean athletes to a taekwondo tournament in Kazakhstan crossed the border into China.
Photos by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency showed lines of people checking in for the return flight to Pyongyang from Beijing with large piles of wrapped boxes and luggage.
Air Koryo has also scheduled flights to Vladivostok on Friday, a diplomat told Reuters, in what would be its first flights to Russia since the pandemic.
North Korea signals reopening with first passenger flight in three years
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