The sole international airport for South Korea’s Gangwon-do province, Yangyang International Airport serves the nearby cities of Sokcho and Gangneung. The terminal is small serving little over 5,000 passengers per year, but still, it is the best way to reach South Korea’s mountainous northeastern corner.
Yangyang is small for being an international airport, and the only international connection is on Jin Air to Shanghai-Pudong, only offered on a seasonal basis. Domestic connections include the Korea Express Air offering routes to Busan and Jeju Island.
Yangyang International Airport is located on South Korea’s eastern coast, about midway between the region’s major cities of Sokcho and Gangneung. There are buses that serve both the airport and the cities, without any direct connections. Visitors flying into Yangyang will have to transfer during the two-hour journey in either direction.
Yangyang is something of a testament to survival. In 2008, there were calls for the airport to be sold off or closed, and it handled its supposed last flight on November 1 of that year. Less than two years later, the airport reopened with its route to Busan. Gangwon-do province is hopeful that the 2018 Winter Olympics being hosted in there will breathe new life into the nearly abandoned facility.