HISTORY
He says that the criticisms failed to recognise a lot of dedication and hard work being put in by the construction teams, and admits this did take some gloss off their “incredible achievements”.
“One or two papers have since admitted that they made mistakes during their reporting of the airport’s construction, but not enough really,” says Kang. “In fact, I still remember the headline of one of these apologies, which was ‘An enjoyable mistake’. The article praised the completed airport and, although it wasn’t much after all the criticism, I did appreciate it.”
So was the finished airport everything Kang thought it would be after working on its construction for six years and being involved in its planning for nearly 12 years? “Its opening, of course, coincided with the turn of the new
century so we wanted it to be different, special if you like. We knew the airport should, of course, be excellent in terms of functionality, advanced technology, safety and convenience for passengers. But we also wanted the airport to be beautiful, and I think we got our wish. “I am sorry, however, that we didn’t have the budget to provide Incheon with the gardens to match our catchphrase of ‘airport in the park, and park in an airport’. “I wanted the airport to have parks and green spaces, which could be enjoyed by visitors as well as passengers, but sadly we weren’t able to do that back in 2001.”
It is very different now, of course, as the airport terminal is without doubt one of the most impressive in the world for flora and fauna, the highlight possibly being the Star Garden in the Transportation Centre.
And it is going to get even better, with current CEO, CW Lee, revealing that this year he will invest $5 million alone on planting flowers in a field next to the airport approach road. The only other ‘dream’ Kang says that he did not fulfil during his time as chairman was to oversee Incheon’s development as an airport city, with facilities such as apartments, shopping centres, hotels, medical centres and office accommodation for the headquarters of multi-national companies built around the airport site. Once again, Incheon Airport is doing its best to put this right today, with the creation of its own airport city (‘Air City’) still very much part of its plans.
Kang stayed on for a year after the airport’s opening to ensure that “everything worked” before moving on to pastures new in 2002.
“Having overseen the airport’s construction and proved that it could cope with the extreme cold of the Korean winter and intense heat of the summer, my job was done,” he comments. “I was an old man, after all, and it was somebody else’s turn to be in charge.”
They certainly don’t make many people as dedicated to their job as Dong-suk Kang anymore.
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