AIRPORT REPORT: INCHEON
“If you take over a struggling airport, the pressure is very different as
there is always room for improvement and change is expected. The need to make improvements is not always so obvious when you are already successful and popular with passengers. “The Korean people are used to Incheon being the number one airport
in the world. When you have been voted the best airport in the world for three successive years, like we had when I took over, the prospect of becoming number two in the world was no good. “There is nothing wrong with being second best, of course, as it is still a
huge honour. However, we were number one and wanted to stay that way. Fortunately, our success has continued as we have now been named best airport in the world for an unparalleled six successive years.” Indeed, the man who tasted a great deal of success in the private sector
– most recently in his role as president and CEO of GE Healthcare Asia Growth Markets – says that collecting ACI’s top ASQ award for the past two years is one of his proudest moments. Recalling the fi rst time he collected in the award, he enthuses: “The
moment I went up onto the platform and raised my two hands in celebration, I felt like a movie star as many leading airport fi gures from across the world watched on with envy. “I shall also never forget the joy and delight I felt when we were
awarded an ASQ Special Recognition award by ACI at its recent World Assembly in Bermuda.” Within days of February’s announcement that Incheon had won the
world’s best airport ward for six successive years, IIAC unveiled its slogan for 2011 – ‘Let’s go and win seven’.
In fact, the airport is absolutely determined to hang on to its lofty status
as the world’s best airport for as long as possible, recently and this commitment, along with a policy of always striving to raise the bar on service standards, ensures that it will take some beating. Lee certainly has no hesitation in proclaiming that he inherited a
strong service oriented culture at Incheon and a dedicated and passionate management team. However, he admits that the IIAC he joined was a very bureaucratic
organisation and quite ‘Korean’ in the way it operated and did business, and over the past few years he has tried to change this by adopting a more ‘global’ approach. His management team was certainly left in no doubt about the way IIAC
was heading when he announced that he only wanted to hear “positive news” at Monday’s executive meetings. “I only want them to bring their heads and their ideas,” explains Lee.
“We talk and share information. I want to know what each and everyone of them achieved over the previous week. I want to hear good and not bad things. If they haven’t achieved anything good they cannot talk. This encourages positive thinking and actions. “When we started these meetings nobody talked very much. Now I
cannot stop them talking! We are a very different organisation now to the one we were three years ago.” Lee believes that such meetings have helped foster a new, less
bureaucratic corporate culture that is more ‘global’ in outlook, although he concedes that it is early days in the company’s evolution into a global airport operator.
AIRPORT WORLD/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2011 21
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