A plane from Air Koryo landed in Beijing from Pyongyang today, Tuesday, marking the first passenger flight since the COVID-19 related shutdown began in 2020, signaling the opening of North Korea's borders to some travelers. The flight arrived at 09:17 AM local time (01:17 GMT), shortly before the scheduled time. It is still unclear who was on board, but Western tourism companies operating in North Korea stated that it appears to be a special flight intended to transport North Koreans stranded in China due to years of border closures.
This flight is part of a gradual reopening of the borders of one of the world's most politically and economically isolated countries. Slow increases in train and cargo ship traffic have occurred over the past year, but North Korea has only recently begun permitting some international passenger flights. For the first time since before the pandemic, government delegations from China and Russia visited Pyongyang last month, and North Korean athletes crossed the border into China last week to attend a taekwondo championship in Kazakhstan.
