The Korean aviation industry is grappling with the double headwinds from China and the United States. It has already been hurt from the shrinking number of tourists from the world’s biggest spending and traveling country due to constraint travel order from Beijing authorities and fears further cargo revenue drop from trade protectionism under the new U.S. administration of Donald Trump.

The Chinese authority reportedly sent out order to provincial governments to scale back group tourists to Korea until April. The foreign ministry denies it implements any travel constraints to another country without a clear reason. Beijing has been making a series of actions to curb Korean trade in both goods and services following the Seoul’s decision to deploy U.S.-led antimissile system.

Travel constraint order from the world’s most populous nation can have a huge impact. Mainland visitors to Taiwan shrank 58 percent on year six months into the Chinese administrative action to curb travel to Taiwan in complaint over the launch of a new government in May that favors independence from China. Transasia Airways, one of Taiwan’s three major carriers, went bankrupt last week.

Chinese visitors to Korea grew a mere 4.7 percent in October from a year-ago period, compared with 15.6-percent on-year gain in October last year. Chinese tourists take up nearly half of foreign visitors to Korea.

Chinese make up 15 percent of passengers at Korean Air and 22 percent of Asiana Airlines.

Cargo volume also has been decreasing amid concerns of reduced trade with the United States following the victory of Trump who had threatened to up tariffs on emerging countries raking in large surpluses in trade with the United States and renegotiate the bilateral free trade agreement.

The North American route delivers 43 percent cargo revenue for Korean Air and 49 percent for Asiana. Cargo volumes by the two air carriers totaled 197,000 tons in October, down 1.5 percent on year. Cargo volume fell 21.2 percent over the last three months.

By Jung Wook and Kim Jung-hwan

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]