South Korea has told its low-cost carriers to prioritize safety over profit after the deadly crash of a Jeju Air plane in South Korea last month, in an effort to shore up confidence in the country’s aviation industry.

In a meeting with South Korea’s nine budget airlines on Thursday, the nation’s transportation ministry demanded that they take measures to reduce flight hours, improve pilot training and increase the number of maintenance workers. The ministry stopped short of issuing formal targets, instead leaving it for airlines to develop their own proposals.

Jeju Air said it would reduce the average daily flight time of its planes to 12.8 hours from 14 per day, according to the ministry. The carrier will also add 41 maintenance workers to increase the total number to 350, it said.

The crash, in which a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 smashed into a concrete wall at Muan International Airport, killing 179 people, was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil. And it was the deadliest worldwide since that of Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018, when all 189 people onboard died. Travel agencies say that people have canceled their trips in the weeks since, according to local media.

While there is no evidence indicating that poor maintenance or pilot error was a factor in the crash, investigators will look at all aspects of the flight. That includes the plane’s repair history and whether a bird strike knocked out its engines and electrical systems.

Airlines that ignore safety will be shunned by travelers and disappear, the ministry said in a statement. It said it would suspend flight certificates for carriers that do not adhere to safety standards.

Low-cost carriers have grown rapidly in the past two decades despite a setback when travel collapsed during the pandemic. But they face cost pressure as they compete to cut ticket prices.

Some of the government’s proposed safety measures may have a limited impact on safety, but could help in ways such as reducing the workloads of pilots and other workers to decrease the risk of fatigue leading to human error, aviation experts said.

“There’s not that much you can do in an hour other than basic safety checks,” said Kwon Bo Hun, a professor of aviation safety management at Far East University, referring to Jeju Air’s decision to cut flight hours.

Officials have said that the airplane that crashed was around 15 years old and had no history of accidents. Older planes are considered safe, but often require more maintenance.

The government’s demands could also raise costs for airlines that compete to offer cut-price travel. Increasing the size of maintenance crews, for instance, would increase operation costs for airlines that operate on a model of a no-frills service, leading to more expensive tickets, experts said.

On Wednesday, the government announced plans to overhaul runway infrastructure that included extending safety zones and building localizers, the antenna arrays that help pilots land, with more flexible steel instead of concrete.

One particular subject of investigations into the crash is the concrete wall at the Muan Airport that contained its antenna array. Flight 7C2216 skidded into a concrete wall at high speed and exploded, killing all but two of the plane’s passenger and crew.

A safety inspection by the transportation ministry several weeks ago found that seven South Korean airports and several of the nation’s airlines were breaching existing safety standards. Violations included failure to conduct safety checks within the required time frame after takeoff and inadequately replacing filters on a plane’s hydraulic systems after they overheated.

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