Air traffic in South Korea has hit a record high for the first half of this year.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Thursday, the number of airplanes that used South Korea’s airways in the January-June period stood at around 358-thousand, up eight-point-one percent from the same period last year. 

An average of nearly two-thousand planes flew over South Korean air space every day during the cited period.

Some 216-thousand planes used international routes to and from South Korea, up nine-point-nine percent on-year, while domestic flights rose by four-point-nine percent to about 119-thousand.

The number of planes passing through the country's air space jumped 9.7 percent on-year to just over 23-thousand, of which about half were headed to China.

South Korea's air traffic continued to set new records over the past 10 years with average annual growth of five-point-six percent.

A ministry official said the upward trend will continue given the growing demand for flights bound for China or other East Asian countries.