FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS BETWEEN S. KOREA-JAPAN

[Anchor Lead]

It's been a day since Korea and Japan scrapped no-visa entries for each other's citizens. With few flights operating between the two countries, passengers coming from Japan are subject to Korea's special quarantine procedures.

[Pkg]

Passengers traveling from Osaka are guided into an exclusive arrival hall after landing at Incheon Airport. They are subject to special quarantine procedures that are the same as those for passengers from China. The passengers from Japan are first required to hand in inquiries about their health conditions. They then have to reveal their contact information in Korea and download an app to do a self-check for potential coronavirus infection. There were just 25 passengers and the quarantine process went smoothly.

[Soundbite] HAN BOK-SOON(JEJU) : "We sought understandings from our Japanese customers for the tougher entry process, since they will not be able to come until the situation changes."

These tougher steps indicate serious troubles for passengers who frequently travel between Korea and Japan for business purposes."

[Soundbite] KIM JAE-WOO(SEOUL) : "We conduct a trading business with Japan and need to travel to Japan every day. My company is in serious trouble due to flight suspensions to Japan.

Narita near Tokyo and Kansai in Osaka are the only two Japanese airports Korean flights are allowed to access. Korean Air and Jeju Air have been the last Korean carriers to serve the routes to the Japanese cities. But Korean Air will suspend flights to Osaka starting Wednesday. Asiana Airlines and other local carriers have already halted all their flights to Japan. An average of 36,000 people used to travel to and from Japan via Incheon Airport everyday. That figure has now dropped to some 100 since the number of flights between the neighbors fell. The total number of people using Incheon Airport dropped to a record low of some 20,000 last weekend - less than a third of the 70,000 employees stationed at the airport.