Korea’s international air passenger traffic jumped to a new monthly high in July due to a sharp rise in visitors from Japan and China, the governmenty said on Monday.

The number of international air passengers to and from Korea surged to 4.34 million last month, up 10.2 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

“International airline passengers increased greatly in July due to an increase in the number of South Koreans going overseas for vacation, as well as an expansion of international services by low-cost carriers,” the Transport Ministry said in a press release.

The Transport Ministry also attributed the rise to an increase in the number of people coming to the country, especially from Japan and China.

“Passengers to and from Japan rose 16.9 percent on year partly due to an increase in the number of flights by low-cost carriers with the number of visitors to and from China also rising 12.6 percent with renewed popularity of K-pop music (in China),” the ministry said in the statement.

The number of passengers on flights to and from Southeast Asian countries also rose 9.8 percent to some 1.34 million from a year earlier, but the number of people to and from the United States dropped 1.6 percent to 375,647, according to the report.

Of the total, 66.5 percent of all international passengers to and from Korea used flights offered by the country’s two flag carriers ― Korean Air and Asiana Airlines ― with the number of passengers on the country’s low-cost carriers growing 3.5 percentage points to account for 8 percent of the total, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritimes Affairs.

The number of passengers on domestic flights also rose 6 percent on-year to 1.84 million, partly due to a large number of people visiting the 2012 World Expo held in the city of Yeosu, South Jeolla Province.

The Yeosu Expo closed last Sunday after attracting over 8 million domestic and international visitors since its start on May 12. (Yonhap News)