28 I Airport update
Having already exceeded its passenger-handling capacity by a few million, Incheon Airport’s soon-to-open Terminal 2 comes in the nick of time, writes Craig Bright
S
tanding calmly in a shuffling queue at Incheon Airport, the words “emergency status” hardly jump to mind. Yet for Seoul’s primary airport, these are precisely the words used by its president and CEO, Il-Young
Chung, as the airport attempts to process millions more passengers than it has the capacity to handle. While provocative, Chung’s words are a fair assessment of the current status of the airport. In the 16 years since it opened, Incheon has managed to hit its 54 million-passenger capacity and then some. Last year it processed a total of 57.7 million travellers, and this year’s figure looks set to be even higher. It’s little wonder that the development of the airport’s new Terminal 2 building (scheduled to open before the end of the year) is at the forefront of Incheon International Airport Corporation’s list of priorities. Recent spikes in numbers at Incheon Airport have hastened this need – even prompting a “national call” for the opening date to be brought forward. In 2016, the airport’s passenger traffic jumped a massive 17 per cent compared to the previous year (Beijing Capital International Airport, the busiest in Asia-Pacific, grew just 2.6 per cent by comparison), and from January to March this year Incheon saw 13 per cent more passengers than it had in the same period in 2015. The airport’s growth has been such that Airports Council International ranked it the world’s 19th busiest airport in 2016 – up from 22nd in 2015. “We’re expecting a total of 62 million passengers in 2017 and these passengers are having to be handled with just the Terminal 1 and the concourse,” says Chung. “As we’ve already exceeded our capacity, we’re very busy handling all those passengers and a lot of the staff are working under emergency status. We didn’t expect such a fast increase in passenger numbers in the past, so we’re hurrying to open Terminal 2 as fast as we can.” Once it opens, Terminal 2 is expected to add 18 million passengers to the airport’s overall handling capacity, bringing the total to 72 million.
NOVEMBER 2017
businesstraveller.com
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