Jeju Air announced on the 5th that it has operated approximately 770,000 flights over about 19 years since its first flight, transporting over 123.12 million passengers. Jeju Air celebrated its 19th anniversary on the same day, having launched its first route from Gimpo to Jeju on June 5, 2006.
In its first year, Jeju Air recorded 250,400 passengers, and the number of passengers exceeded 10 million in 2017. Last year, it set a record for the largest annual passenger number ever at over 13.35 million.
Jeju Air explained that it has maintained an average annual passenger growth rate of 23.3% over the past 19 years and, in July 2023, became the first domestic low-cost carrier (LCC) to surpass 100 million cumulative passengers since its inception.
Starting with the Gimpo to Jeju route, Jeju Air has expanded to focus on medium- and short-haul routes to Japan, China, and Southeast Asia, currently operating 64 routes to 49 cities.
In particular, for Japan, it exclusively operates routes to small cities such as Shizuoka, Hiroshima, Matsuyama, and Oita. As a result, the number of passengers to Japan, which was 115,300 when it first launched regular flights on Japanese routes in 2009, increased to 3.8421 million last year, 33 times more.
The fleet has also increased from 22 aircraft at the end of 2015 to the current 42. Jeju Air is focusing on modernizing its fleet by purchasing and introducing its 4th B737-8 aircraft last month and plans to continue introducing new aircraft and expanding routes in the second half of this year.
A representative of Jeju Air said, “We will continuously discover various routes to create a routine for travel based on convenient schedules.”