Inter-Korea air service launched
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Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang during an annual parade.
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SEOUL, South Korea -- After a 50-year lull, the first commercial air services between North and South Korea since the division of the peninsula have opened.
A North Korean Koryo Airline plane flew from Pyongyang to Seoul early Monday to collect 114 South Korean tourists, taking them north over the Yellow Sea, Yonhap news agency has reported.
The route avoids the inter-Korean border, the most heavily fortified frontier in the world.
At a cost of 2.2 million won (U.S.$1,870) a head, the group will spend five days touring the North before returning to Seoul on Friday on a chartered Asiana Airlines flight, Yonhap reported.
The package will run until the end of the year, managed by a South Korean tour agency. Organizers say there are no plans to bring North Koreans to the South.
It is hoped the visit will help thaw relations between North and South, as tensions linger over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
"The tour will broaden the scope of trips to the North by South Koreans and contribute to inter-Korean reconciliation in the long run," a spokesman for the travel agency said.
"It will also contribute to peaceful relations and improving cooperation."
The border between North and South Korea remains heavily guarded 50 years after the bitter Korean War ended on July 27, 1953 with nearly 3 million dead.
The two Koreas are technically still at war having never signed a peace treaty, but have managed to maintain regional stability.
