(KPL/Yonhap) The number of air passengers who traveled on the Republic of Korea-Japan routes in the January-October period exceeded 20 million, mainly driven by the weak Japanese yen, data showed Sunday.

A total of 20.56 million passengers traveled between the two countries in the first 10 months, up 33 percent from 15.47 million a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The record 10-month figure is just short of 21.35 million recorded for the whole of 2018 when the number of passengers on the Korea-Japan routes hit a record.

Given this year's average figure of passengers on the Seoul-Tokyo routes stands at about 2 million a month, this year's annual figure is expected to break the previous record, according to the data.

Local airlines have allocated more flights on their routes to Japan to absorb increasing travel demand during the peak winter season.

In particular, the yen's weakness against the Korean won has pushed up travel demand to the neighboring country since last year.

The yen fell below 900 won again at 894.89 won on Friday after temporarily rising to 950 won in August.

On the routes between  Korea and China, the number of passengers came to 11.56 million from January to October, far higher than 6.84 million recorded for all of 2023, the ministry said.

Industry watchers expected travel demand on the Seoul-Beijing routes will further improve as China launched a visa waiver program for the Republic of Korean passport holders from Nov. 8 through the end of next year.

KPL