His comments came in written answers to questions submitted by Reuters when he headed a delegation to the annual general meeting in Geneva last week of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which Air Koryo has just joined.
The airspace opening, he said, ``will make a considerable contribution to international civil aviation as it will facilitate the establishment and operation of new international air routes.'' Although Air Koryo's scheduled passenger and cargo operations were currently limited by its handful of foreign destinations, Kim added ``we expect that the volume will be rapidly increased in the near future.''
A new international airport was already under construction at the Rajin-Sonbong free economic and trade zone, which the reclusive communist state has set up in the north-east on the border with China and Russia as part of a cautious opening to foreign bu siness.
Another international airport would follow ``in the near future'' with the conversion of the domestic airport at Hamhung, which serves the port of Hungnam on the Sea of Japan.
Air Koryo, until recently known simply as Korean State Airlines or CAAK, was set up in 1954 to succeed a Soviet-North Korean carrier formed in 1950 during the three-year war on the Korean peninsula, divided at the end of World War Two. Employing some 2, 500 staff, it currently operates a fleet of 25 Soviet-built Antonov, Ilyushin and Tupolev passenger and cargo aircraft out of a main base at Pyongyang's Sunnan Airport.
Present scheduled passenger routes link the North Korean capital to Berlin, Moscow and Sofia -- relics of the country's past, if sometimes strained, political links with states which have now renounced communism -- and to Beijing. It also flies a regula r route to Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East to serve North Korean contract workers in the logging industry. In September it also opened a twice-weekly service to Macau, the Portuguese colony on the Chinese mainland.
On top of its scheduled runs, the airline operates charter services to Asian, African and some European countries. Kim said many foreign airlines had already applied to fly over North Korea -- a saving on time and fuel the Geneva and Montreal-based IATA says will cut costs for carriers operating in the region by more than $125 million a year.
The opening will provide a more direct route for the growing air traffic between the United States and China, industry officials say, as well as between Beijing and Tokyo. ``No exception will be applied to South Korea,'' Kim told Reuters in answers tra nslated into English by North Korea's diplomatic mission in Geneva.
The two countries are technically still at war after the 1950-53 conflict, which pitted a U.S.-led United Nations force against both North Korea and China. Seoul and Pyongyang are currently engaged in a fierce war of words over what the South says was an attempt by the North to land over 20 commandos on its territory.
The Air Koryo chief said Pyongyang would welcome help from the international civil aviation community in providing the facilities that would be needed in the coming years. The foreign currency-strapped country, suffering from the effects of devastating floods in the past two years, ``will have to bear a heavy burden to obtain the latest navigation, air traffic control and communication equipment to meet demands which are expected to grow rapidly in the near future,'' he said.
Most of the new technology would be imported to upgrade and expand its present equipment. Kim said a meeting would be held in Bangkok at the end of the month under the auspices of the Montreal-based United Nations agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), to finalize technical issues on the air space opening.