Addendum
Agreement expands North Asia corridor to accommodate exponential airline demand
February 1st 2021
Japan, Korea and China have signed an agreement that has expanded capacity along the heavily trafficked North Asia flight corridor, AKARA. Read More »
The airway is split between countries whose air traffic controllers operate on different frequencies. Traffic using the AKARA corridor between Japan and South Korea has soared from 36,000 a year in 1983 to 212,000 in 2019, dramatically raising the threat of collisions from difficulties in communications with pilots, and turbulence or bad weather.
The AKARA corridor is made up of Flight Information Regions (FIR) Fukuoka, Incheon, Taibei and Shanghai.
Operations urgently need to expand to cope with the resumption in traffic post the pandemic.
The three countries recently signed an agreement that allows South Korea to take over Japan’s role and guide flights in and out of Shanghai on behalf of China. The countries also will establish an airway from Korea to Japan and extend it to the Mainland.
Apart from the three signatories to the new agreement, delayed from last April, the corridor mainly has been utilized by U.S. and Canadian aircraft. Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing signed the original AKARA agreement in 1983. At that time, flights through the 519 kms long by 93 kms wide zone, which stretches from China to South Korea’s FIR, near Jeju Island, and Japan’s Fukue Island, were in their dozens daily.
Approval for an expanded AKARA was the result of a working group set up in January 2019, with representatives from the three AKARA nations and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). After consensus was reached between the parties, implementation of the new rules was set back by COVID-19. The second phase of the agreement is tentatively scheduled to commence on June 17 after Korea and China establish an air route for all sections of the corridor.
