Authorities have instructed airlines to begin flights to North Korea

The Federal Air Transport Agency has instructed Aeroflot and the Far Eastern airline Aurora to prepare for regular flights to the capital of the DPRK, Pyongyang, sources in the aviation industry told Kommersant. This happened after a delegation from the Russian department visited North Korea last week to coordinate the issue with the DPRK Civil Aviation Administration. Before the pandemic, tourists from Russia could visit the DPRK as part of organized tours. Currently, Air Koryo operates flights from Vladivostok to Pyongyang twice a week. Air traffic to North Korea consists primarily of “business travel traffic,” industry sources noted. According to them, the loading of planes from Pyongyang is formed by “workers, mainly construction workers.” In the current “foreign political realities”, Russia is striving for new partnerships, the construction and development of which without direct flights from Moscow is not very comfortable, says the head of the “Airport” Oleg Panteleev. “The main interests of such flights—from business and political circles—are in Moscow,” the expert explained. At the same time, Russian airlines do not yet have narrow-body long-haul aircraft capable of performing non-stop flights between the capitals of the two countries, “and wide-body aircraft will not be able to provide adequate loading for high-frequency traffic,” Panteleev added.