First North Korean international commercial flight in 3 years lands in Beijing

BEIJING – North Korea’s first international commercial flight in three years landed in Beijing on Tuesday.

An arrivals board seen by an AFP journalist at the airport showed Air Koryo Flight JS151 arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport at 9:17am local time.

It is the state airline’s first commercial flight since early 2020, after North Korea shut its borders in response to Covid-19. The plane left Pyongyang at around 8.30am local time, Flightradar and Chinese tracking app Umetrip showed.

Approached for comment at the airline’s office in Beijing, an Air Koryo representative said he had “no information” to offer.

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.

“This flight isn’t a full resumption of the route yet, it is a special flight for Koreans only, to take people home again after years being stuck overseas,” said Mr Simon Cockerell, general manager at Beijing-based Koryo Tours. “The same as the flights that seem likely to happen soon from Vladivostok.”

“It’s all happening, but for Koreans first, the rest of us… later,” he added.

North Korea has been largely closed off from the outside world since early 2020, when it shut its borders in response to the pandemic. But after three years of Covid-19-induced isolation, there are increasing signs Pyongyang may be becoming more flexible on border controls.

Chinese and Russian officials attended a military parade

in the North Korean capital in July – the first foreign dignitaries to visit the country in years.

And last week, Pyongyang allowed a delegation of athletes to attend a taekwondo competition in Kazakhstan.

Specialist website NK News reported on Monday that Air Koryo was set to carry out two flights from Vladivostok to Pyongyang on Friday and next Monday. AFP, REUTERS