Low cost carrier T’way Air will start flying to Wuhan, China once a week from Wednesday, becoming the first airline in the country to travel the route in eight months.

The move comes after the Ministry of Transport gave the airline the go-ahead Tuesday night to offer flights between Incheon and Wuhan, one official at T’way Air said, after having obtained approval from China’s civil aviation authorities recently.

The Incheon to Wuhan flights are known to be popular among business officials and Koreans living in the Chinese city.

T‘way Air‘s previous plans to launch flights to Wuhan earlier this year were blocked after the South Korean government banned flights to and from the capital of China’s Hubei province in late January as it became the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

But travel restrictions on those arriving from Wuhan were lifted last month in South Korea after no new cases had been reported in the region and the Chinese government eased its visa ban on South Koreans.

Previously, Korean Air and China Southern Airlines ran four flights a week to the city before the ban took place in January.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)