Trends and Rate of Change in the number of Arrival & Departure Passengers by major Domestic Airports
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Choi Jeong Il , Park Ji Yoon 
Published: December 2024

The purpose of this study is to examine the trends in the number of arrival and departure passengers by major domestic airports, and to analyze the relationship between the increase rate and volatility of each airport. The data used in this study was organized by KOSIS “Transportation Logistics ⇨ Aviation Statistics ⇨ Airport Statistics” for the number of passengers. For the analysis period, a total of 190 monthly data were used from January 2005 to October 2020. In this study, we performed numerical analysis, index analysis, and model analysis using the rate of change from the previous month.
Recently, new airports in Korea such as Gadeokdo New Airport, Jeju 2nd Airport, Ulleung Airport, Heuksan Airport, and Saemangeum Airport are being promoted with a lot of social interest. In this study, we selected six major airports among existing airports to examine the trends in the number of arrival and departure passengers by domestic airport. Incheon International Airport was built as a replacement airport when Gimpo Airport exceeded its passenger and cargo capacity. In accordance with Seoul’s global city strategy, Incheon opened its port in April 2001, and then expanded Terminal 2 through phases 1∼3 in 2017, allowing it to accommodate 72 million passengers a year.
Gimpo Airport transports air passengers and cargo. Since 2001, domestic flights and international flights such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Shanghai have been operating. Since 2001, international flights have decreased, and as KTX operations and air routes in some local cities have been closed, the number of domestic flights has been further decreasing. Gimhae Airport is a military and civilian international airport in Busan. It is the fourth airport in Korea after Incheon, Jeju, and Gimpo in terms of passengers. International passengers operate a lot after Incheon Airport. In 2018, the number of international passengers exceeded 10 million, and international flights mainly operate routes such as China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Cheongju Airport is a base airport in the central region, and the relocation of Sejong City to the National Assembly is being discussed, making new changes. It is expected to contribute to regional development as the number of foreign tourists increases due to the growth of the tourism industry and the vitalization of the airport. Gwangju Airport is operating international flights to Bangkok and Osaka in June 1995 by linking Gimpo and Gimhae Airports. In 2001, it served as a key airport in the southwest region when it launched international flights to Shanghai. However, with the opening of Muan Airport in 2007, the international flight function was transferred. Jeju Airport was promoted to an international airport in 1968, and domestic airlines are the most developed among domestic airports. The Gimpo-Jeju route is the world’s most passenger-operated route with 13.46 million passengers in 2017. Even after Corona 19, it maintains the number one route used by the most passengers in the world.
In technical statistics, Cheongju, Jeju, Gwangju and Gimhae showed relatively high rates of increase and high volatility. As a result of correlation analysis, compared with total passengers at domestic airports, Gimhae, Gimpo, Cheongju, Jeju, Gwangju, and Incheon were higher in order. In the scatter analysis for each airport, Gimpo and Gimhae showed relatively high levels compared to total domestic passengers. On the other hand, Gwangju and Incheon showed relatively low synchronization. In the regression analysis, it was calculated that Gimpo, Gimhae, Cheongju, and Incheon were statistically significant, while Jeju and Gwangju were not. The Durbin-Watson stat was 2.262, which was close to 2, indicating that each airport fluctuates independently of each other.