By Kim Se-jeong
Incheon International Airport (IIA) is finding it more difficult to attract transfer flights as China and Japan are increasing direct flights to cities in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
This bodes ill for the airport, which is facing growing competition from Chinese and Japanese airports.
According to the Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC), the number of transfer passengers who used the airport dropped last year by 460,000, the first decrease in four years.
“To be a hub airport, increasing the number of transfer passengers is very important,” an official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. The ratio of transfer passengers among all passengers is an indicator of how busy an airport is.
The decrease was caused by fewer connecting flights bound from China and Japan, said IIAC.
Since it first opened in 2001, the number of transfer passengers at the Incheon airport has increased steadily ― 1.62 million in 2001, 3 million in 2005, 5 million in 2010 and 7.7 million in 2013. This prompted IIAC to expand its facilities.
However, rising competition, especially from China is a growing threat.
It used to be that most flights heading to the United States from a Chinese city had connecting flights in Incheon, but that is changing.
Also, Beijing is building a second airport. According to the transport ministry, the new airport that will open in 2017 will have the capacity to accommodate 90 million passengers.
Japan’s Haneda Airport also added more international flights, meaning fewer people connect at Incheon.
To increase the flow of passengers, IIAC’s President Park met with Delta Airlines CEO Richard Anderson last December to talk with him about transferring America’s biggest airline’s Asia hub to Incheon from Narita, Japan.
“We are improving facilities and expanding transportation networks,” he said before his trip. “We’ll make efforts to increase the transfer rate and bring more carriers here,”
The transport ministry, IIAC, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines also launched a task force late last year to find ways to maintain and increase the number of transfer passengers.
“We can overcome this,” said one IIAC official optimistically.
The airport opened in March 2001 leading up to the FIFA World Cup in 2002. The airport has the capacity of serving 44 million passengers.