Muan International Airport — Muan (Piseo-ri), South Korea

South Korea's southwestern Jeollanam-do province gained a regional gateway when Muan International Airport, coded MWX, opened to ease pressure on Gwangju's airport and support a part of the country that had lagged economically behind the Seoul metropolitan area. For years, passenger volumes stayed modest relative to the ambitions behind the project, with domestic routes to Seoul supplemented by a smaller number of international charter and scheduled flights toward China and Southeast Asia. The airport drew intense global attention in December 2024, when a passenger jet arriving from Southeast Asia was involved in a catastrophic runway accident that became one of the deadliest aviation disasters in South Korean history, prompting nationwide mourning and a broad review of airport safety infrastructure across the country. That tragedy overshadowed MWX's original purpose as a quiet regional connector for Jeollanam-do's farming and fishing communities, thrusting a facility once known mainly to domestic travelers into international headlines almost overnight.