North Korea resumed its first direct Air China flights from Beijing in six years on March 30, and the news has spread quickly inside the country, stirring genuine excitement among North Korean people who hope the resumption will bring Chinese traders back and improve daily living condition.
A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province reported Wednesday that news of the flight resumption was circulating rapidly through Hoeryong. “There are also rumors going around that Chinese merchants will start coming back in,” the source said. “People are reacting with a lot of anticipation and delight.”
Air China, China’s state-owned flag carrier, operated its first Beijing-Pyongyang service in six years on March 30, flying the CA121 route once weekly. The flight came approximately 18 days after passenger train service between Beijing and Pyongyang was also restored on March 12, the first time cross-border rail links had operated since 2020.
Hopes of a Chinese economic windfall
What North Korean people are most eagerly anticipating, the source said, is the economic activity that Chinese visitors could bring with them. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese nationals frequently stayed in private homes for extended periods, and those households that hosted them or did business with them saw their circumstances improve noticeably. North Korean people are now hoping for a return to those conditions.
Traders in the jangmadang, North Korea’s informal markets, are particularly hopeful. The source said many are recalling how, prior to the pandemic, they were able to sell directly to visiting Chinese merchants without incurring transportation costs, boosting their margins. With Chinese traders back in the picture, they expect market turnover to increase and the jangmadang overall to become more active.
Chinese business figures who had previously traveled regularly to North Korea are also paying close attention. A source with ties to the North Korea business community in China said that since the resumption of both train and air services, entrepreneurs there have been showing “considerable interest” in travel to North Korea as well as in business opportunities.
Whether those expectations will be met is far from certain. The source cautioned that what North Korean people are hoping for remains just that: hope. Authorities, the source noted, are prioritizing large-scale factory-level investment over individual commerce. Still, the source added, if more Chinese nationals invest in factories, workers at those facilities may at least begin receiving proper food rations again, meaning even state-directed investment could improve everyday conditions in some way.
Young North Koreans see the gap
Not all reactions to the news have been optimistic. Among young North Korean people in Hoeryong, the flight resumption has prompted a different, more bitter response.
“People in other countries can just buy a ticket and fly abroad whenever they feel like it. We can only dream,” some young people were reportedly saying. Others remarked that they cannot even travel to Pyongyang freely, let alone go abroad, and several were quoted as saying they wondered whether they would ever be able to board a plane before they die.
“Here in North Korea, it is almost impossible to imagine an ordinary person flying abroad on a plane,” the source said. “The fact that young people immediately started saying ‘I wish I could go abroad on a plane’ the moment they heard about the flight resumption tells you everything.”
The one-way fare on the Air China route is approximately 2,040 Chinese yuan (about $280), and travelers entering North Korea are required to present a health certificate, reflecting continued official concern about the introduction of infectious diseases.
The flight resumption is the latest step in a gradual restoration of people-to-people links between North Korea and China, its largest trading partner. Chinese tour groups accounted for an estimated 80 to 90% of foreign visitors to North Korea before the pandemic, and observers have been watching closely to see how far and how fast Pyongyang will allow that flow to resume.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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April 3, 2026 at 12:45AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)