An Air Koryo flight from Pyongyang landed on Tuesday in Beijing for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began in 2020.
The flight, JS151, arrived 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.
Cargo train and ship traffic have 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.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China announced on Monday that it had agreed to the resumption of Air Koryo flights to China.
Source: Qatar News Agency
