Japan and South Korea reach open skies agreement between Narita and Incheon airports

Japan and South Korea reached an open skies deregulation agreement for civil aviation between Tokyo Narita International Airport and Incheon International Airport (Kyodo News/Yonhap/KUNA, 23-Dec-2010). The agreement will take effect in summer 2013 and will enable Japanese and South Korean airlines to freely operate routes and determine the frequency of passenger and cargo services between the airports. The upper limit of annual air traffic at Narita airport will be raised to 270,000 in summer 2013. The countries also agreed to add 14 weekly services from Korean airports to Tokyo Narita from Mar-2011 before the current cap is lifted altogether. It is the first accord with other Asian economies under the Japanese Government policy of promoting open-skies arrangements as part of the nation's new growth strategy. Japan is also scheduled to conclude open-skies agreements with Singapore in Jan-2011 and Malaysia in Feb-2011.