[Photo provided by Eastar Jet]

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More Korean air carriers rolled back flights to Japan amid the escalating enmity between the two neighboring countries as a longstanding spat over wartime issues spilled over to trade tensions.

South Korean budget carrier Eastar Jet announced Wednesday it will temporarily suspend three routes to Japan, joining its peers in the low-cost category whose revenue largely comes from Japanese routes.

The Easter Jet flights to be suspended are the Incheon-Ibaraki and Cheongju-Sapporo routes that run three days a week, and the Cheongju-Osaka route that operates four days a week. The Cheongju-Sapporo service would be discontinued from Sept. 5, the Cheongju-Osaka from Sept. 6, and the Incheon-Ibaraki from Sept. 19.

Three flights departing from Incheon would also be running on a reduced schedule. Flights to Sapporo and Okinawa, which take off every day, would be cut to four and three days a week, respectively. The Incheon-Kagoshima service has been slashed from four flights to one.

The new schedules would apply until Oct. 26, the company said.

Eastar Jet cited “change in business plans” as the reason behind the flight suspension and cuts. In July last year, the carrier was the first in Korea to reinstate a regular flight to Ibaraki Prefecture, which had been scrapped following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan.

Full-service carrier Asiana Airlines also said Wednesday it will stop the three-times-a-week flight service between Busan and Okinawa from Sept. 23, expanding the rollback in flights to Japanese destinations.

Korea’s largest carrier Korean Air decided to stop its Busan-Sapporo flight from September and plans to deploy smaller planes to Japanese locations. T’way Air halted four services to Oita, Kumamoto and Saga while Korea Express Air also suspended operations between Gimpo and Shimane Prefecture.

A boycott against Japan-made goods and services has flared up in Korea since early July after Tokyo tightened shipment controls of three high-tech materials essential for making memory chips and display panels, Korea’s top export items. Last week, Japan dropped Korea from its favored trade partner list, expanding the scope of its export restrictions.

Relations between the two countries have been rocky for years, rooted in Koreans’ deep resentment over Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The latest standoff stems from Korean court rulings that allowed victims from wartime forced labor to make individual compensation claims against Japanese companies.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]