T’way expands presence with more long-distance routes

Korea’s low-cost carrier (LCC) operator T’way Air leaped to rank second among local budget carriers and expects its sales to reach 1 trillion won ($771 million) by year-end due to the company’s strategic expansion of long-distance routes, the airline said, Tuesday.

T’way accumulated 989.8 billion won in sales with an operating profit of 137.1 billion won by the end of the third quarter this year and the company expects its sales to surpass 1 trillion won this year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the budget carrier ranked third among local LCCs with its sales at 810 billion won.

However, the airline decided to diversify its air routes by increasing its mediumand long-distance destinations during and after the pandemic, climbing to rank second after Jeju Air as international travel resumed.

Earlier this year, T’way launched flights between Cheongju and Danang, Bangkok, Osaka, Nha Trang and Yanji, which led the company to absorb outbound travel demand from non-capital areas, according to T’way.

Cheongju International Airport in North Chungcheong Province is the country’s fifth-busiest airport and a gateway to overseas travel for the country’s central rural regions.

The airline also newly introduced Incheon-Bishkek, Incheon-Kota Kinabalu and Daegu-Ulaanbaatar routes and resumed flights between Incheon and Hong Kong and Saga in the third quarter this year.

The new routes increased T’way’s number of passengers.

According to Air Portal, an aviation data provider run by the Korean Civil Aviation Association, the airline saw 8.26 million passengers between January and October this year, which is a 25 percent increase from 6.6 million in 2019 and the second-largest among LCCs after Jeju Air.