Chuseok holiday exodus for hometowns begins

SEOUL, Oct. 1 (Yonhap) -- The annual exodus for the "Chuseok" holiday began
Thursday as South Koreans went to their hometowns to be reunited with family
members and visit family graves.
Chuseok, the Korean harvest holiday, is one of the largest holidays in South
Korea, and runs Friday through Sunday this year.
Cars jammed most of the country's highways, including the Gyeongbu Highway
linking Seoul to the port city of Busan. As of 6:00 p.m., traffic bound for Busan
was backed up on the Gyeongbu Highway for about 52.28km near Suwon in Gyeonggi
Province, 10.03km in Sintanjin, North Chungcheong Province and 5.48km in the
southeastern city of Daegu, according to the Korea Highway Corp.
The state-run company predicted traffic will peak later in the day, when more
workers are expected to head to their hometowns.
Domestic flights of the two major airlines -- Korean Air and Asiana Airlines --
marked load factors of 70-80 percent, compared with 60 percent on normal days.
The Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs forecast that 25.66
million people will join the exodus during the five-day period from Thursday
through Monday. South Korea has a population of 49 million.
The expected number of holiday travelers decreased 0.8 percent from a year ago as
some people stopped short of making trips due to the relatively shorter length of
holiday and the HINI influenza scare.
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