Guam Sold Out, Da Nang Prices Soar 8 Times... Chuseok Ticket Battle Begins a Year Early

Popular Travel Route Reservation Prices Surge
High Likelihood of Decline as Supply Increases

The competition for booking 'airline tickets' for next year's Chuseok, which is still a year away, is heating up. Ticket prices for some popular travel destinations have reportedly soared by about eight times. It seems that an early surge in overseas travel demand is emerging ahead of the golden holiday period.

According to Naver Calendar and others, next year's Chuseok holiday starts with National Foundation Day on October 3rd, followed by the weekend on the 4th and 5th, the Chuseok holiday from the 6th to the 8th, and Hangeul Day on the 9th, totaling seven days. If you take a day off on Friday the 10th, you can extend the golden holiday to 10 days, including the following weekend (11th?12th). It is an ideal holiday period for long-distance overseas travel.

Next year's Chuseok holiday lasts for a total of 7 days, and if you take 10 days off, you can have a maximum of 10 consecutive days off. [Image source=Samsung Galaxy Calendar app capture]

Because of this, competition for overseas travel airline tickets targeting next year's Chuseok holiday has already begun. Prices for international airline tickets with over 360 days until departure are reportedly about 5 to 8 times higher than usual.

In fact, Korean Air's international flights on October 3rd next year to Hawaii and Guam in economy class are already sold out. Economy class tickets departing the next day are being sold for 1,826,600 KRW, nearly double the price on October 21st this year (860,000 KRW). Round-trip tickets to Da Nang, Vietnam, a popular destination loved worldwide, have surged about eightfold, and ticket prices to Paris, France, and Frankfurt, Germany, have also doubled. It appears that an 'online open run' is effectively taking place to book tickets nearly a year in advance.

Busy airport ahead of the long weekend last month [Image source=Yonhap News]

However, the current booking prices cannot be considered the actual prices for next year's tickets. Since there is still a year until departure, flight schedules have not been finalized, and package travel agencies have not yet put together their products. Over time, ticket prices may even decrease.

Meanwhile, next year's calendar was finalized through the '2025 Calendar Essentials' produced by the Space Aviation Agency last June. The Calendar Essentials provide data such as public holidays for government offices, local holidays, anniversaries, and the 24 solar terms, serving as the basis for calendar production.

According to next year's Calendar Essentials, the total number of public holidays marked on the 2025 calendar, including Sundays and substitute holidays, is 68, the same as this year. Adding 52 Sundays and 18 public holidays such as Lunar New Year and National Foundation Day totals 70 days, but next year Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday overlap, and the first day of the Chuseok holiday falls on a Sunday.