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Cars dumped by foreigners become headache for Incheon airport
Dumped used cars are parked near a cargo terminal at Incheon International Airport on Jan. 26. They number 48 as of Jan. 26. More than half of them were owned by foreigners. Courtesy of Incheon Airport Corporation
By Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
An increasing number of cars apparently dumped at Incheon International Airport's parking lots by foreigners leaving South Korea has become a major headache for operators of the terminal.
The country's largest airport said on Jan. 27 that it confirmed that more than half of the cars that have been parked and collecting dust for over a year at the airport's parking lots belonged to foreigners who had left the country.
Until December 2019, there were 24 vehicles at the airport fitting that bill. As of Wednesday, the figure has doubled. The dumped cars' unpaid parking fees amount to 480 million won ($430,000), according to the airport authority. The airport charges 24,000 won per day for short-term parking and 9,000 won for long-term.
Among the dumped cars are luxury models including Mercedes Benz S Class and E Class sedans as well as a cram school bus, a pickup truck, a small passenger car and an SUV. A vehicle belonging to the United States Forces Korea (USFK) is also among them. The vehicle that has been parked there for the longest time is a Magnus sedan ― for seven years and a month, with unpaid fees totaling around 25 million won.
The airport authority grouped the dumped cars together outside a cargo terminal.
The airport said four of the cars don't have records of owners or their contact numbers. Incheon's Jung District, which is the airport's administrative jurisdiction, plans to sell them in a public auction or scrap them according to the country's Automobile Management Act.
Among the rest of the dumped cars are those with no valid contact numbers to reach their foreign owners ― and the district has no authority to scrap or sell them. The airport authority said they plan to seize them all. The airport has already seized 41 vehicles.
“Unlike ones that are illegally parked, dumped cars are hard to deal with,” an airport authority official said.
The airport authority, according to the Local Tax Collection Act, plans to send the seized cars to Jung District for disposal, except one car from a rental company that the authority plans to auction off.