Korean Air and Asiana Airline announced Wednesday they were augmenting their services between Korea and China with the World Cup approaching. Asiana will expand its China routes from the current 57 flights a week to 81 by opening, or resuming three routes and increasing the frequency of eight current routes.

Service between Incheon International Airport and Hangzhou will start from May 11, and Incheon-Yanji and Jeju-Shanghai routes, which were suspended in October 2001, will resume on April 4 and 26, respectively operating three times a week and once a week. Three more flights from Incheon to Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai each have been made weekly ones.

Korean Air will open four new routes connecting Incheon and Jinan and Amoy, Daegu and Yantai, and Gwangju and Shanghai, expanding its current ten routes and 50 flights a week to 14 routes and 64 flights. Existing operations between Jeju and Beijing will be augmented from the current once a week to twice starting from March 31, and the Incheon-Beijing route will operate eight times a week, instead of seven from April 24.

Due to the concurrent expansion measures, the two national airlines' routes to China total 29, seven more than current 22, and the weekly number of flights will be 145, up from the current 107.

(Kim Seong-beom, sbkim@chosun.com )