Eastern Airlines flight MU2791 lifted off from Nanjing Lukou International Airport at 14:45 on 20 July, marking the resumption of direct passenger flights between the Jiangsu provincial capital and South Korea’s second-largest city after a four-year hiatus. Operated five times weekly with Boeing 737-800 aircraft, the service joins existing Nanjing–Seoul and Nanjing–Jeju routes to give the Yangtze River Delta its third point-to-point Korean connection. Korean nationals already make up the largest foreign-arrival cohort at Nanjing, accounting for one-third of all inbound non-Chinese passport holders so far this year. Local immigration officers say the new flight will help de-congest peak hours at other Korean gateways while supporting a surge in two-way student exchanges and semiconductor-sector commutes. For mobility managers, the restored link provides a competitive alternative to Shanghai, shaving roughly two hours off the door-to-door trip between Busan-area industrial parks and Nanjing’s sprawling electronics manufacturing zones. Fares are also running 15–20 percent lower than those via Seoul Gimpo. Border agencies prepared for the launch by doubling e-gate lanes during the flight’s turnaround window and setting up a live data-share feed with airline systems to pre-risk-assess passenger manifests. Travellers holding China’s 15-day visa-free entry for South Korean nationals can use the flight, but carriers remind passengers that overstays trigger automatic e-gate locks on future visits. Airport authorities hinted that additional routes to Daegu and Gwangju are under negotiation, aiming to restore Nanjing’s pre-pandemic network of six Korean destinations by 2027.
