Incheon International Airport has emerged as one of the world's top-class airports since it opened in 2001. But people had complained about the airport's location that is farther from Seoul and any other part of the country than the old one ― Gimpo International Airport. For the first six years, travelers had to take the bus or a taxi, or drive their own cars to get to the new airport.
To help people have easier transportation access, the government allowed private companies to build a railroad linking the two airports. This means that passengers can go to Incheon by changing trains at the Gimpo International Airport subway station. But it is still inconvenient because there is no direct link from Seoul to Incheon. That's why travelers are shunning the use of the Airport Railroad, which made its debut in March 2007.
The Airport Railroad is the nation's first railway to be built and operated by private capital. Due to a lack of state budget, the government let a consortium led by Hyundai Engineering and Construction build the railroad and gave it the right to operate it for 40 years. But, the railway has become a white elephant because of snowballing operational losses. The ``build, operate and transfer'' contract stipulates that the government should compensate for 90 percent of potential operational losses.
What's really problematic is that the consortium inflated its projection of daily railway passengers to 210,000 in 2007. It also predicted the number of passengers to reach 490,000 in 2010 when the railroad has a direct link to Seoul Station. It expected the number to continue to increase to 670,000 in 2015 and 820,000 in 2020. If the predictions were correct, the railroad might be more than profitable. But, the actual number of railway passengers stood at only 17,159 per day on average in the first three months of this year.
In a nutshell, the railroad makes no economic sense. Thus, the government had to pay 104 billion won in compensation for operational losses to the builder in 2007. The sum jumped to 166 billion won last year. It is also feared to pay an estimated total of 13.8 trillion won until 2040. What a huge waste of taxpayer money! Officials are blamed for negligence and poor work. How could they accept such wild figures? It is nonsense that the prediction far exceeded the total number of airline passengers using Incheon airport.
More deplorable is that any government officials are not ready to take responsibility for the blunders. Chung Jong-hwan, then-chief of the state-run Korea Railroad, signed the contract for the railway project. He is now minister of land, transportation and maritime affairs. The CEO of the Incheon Airport Railroad is Kim Yoon-ki, who served as construction and transportation minister at the time of the conclusion of the contract.
The state Board of Audit and Inspection should conduct an investigation to find out what's wrong with the project. In addition, it must overhaul other public infrastructure projects built by private investors. If corrupt ties are found between bureaucrats and businesspeople, stern legal action should be taken against those wrongdoers in order to prevent a waste of taxpayer money.