A growing number of South Koreans have headed out overseas or plan to do so as airlines cut the fuel surcharge on flight tickets to reflect plummeting oil prices, tour agencies said Tuesday.

South Korea's leading carriers have lowered their fuel surcharge and are expected to make additional cuts next month after crude oil prices have more than halved in recent months.

Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines Inc., the nation's two largest air carriers, set the fuel surcharge at $15 for flights bound for the United States for February, far below $165 from a year ago and down from $58 this month. Flights bound for Europe and Africa also will go down from $56 to $15 next month, according to company officials.

Hana Tour Co., the nation's largest tour agency, estimated the demand for international air travel will rise 28 percent on-year to about 250,000 people this month, and predicted that 154,000 people will travel abroad in February, up 22 percent from a year ago.

The top destinations were Vietnam and Cambodia, followed by Thailand and Japan, the agency said.

"The demand for overseas travel has sharply risen thanks to the drop in the fuel surcharge, especially to Southeast Asia and Japan," a Hana Tour agency official said.

Mode Tour Co., the nation's second-largest tour agency, said the number of outbound travelers via its agents jumped 30 percent on-year in January, while half of them traveled to Southeast Asia.

Mode expected a 15 percent rise in the number of overseas travelers next month.

Interpark INT Co., an online ticketing agency, said its overseas flight ticket sales soared 25.5 percent in January from a year earlier, and booking rates for next month increased 11 percent. (Yonhap)