Incheon airport to expand services for Chinese

Incheon International Airport Corp. President and CEO Park Wan-su / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Kim Rahn

Incheon International Airport is considering creating Chinese-only check-in counters and immigration desks to cater to the growing number of travelers from China, airport chief Park Wan-su said.

Park said he wants to invite Chinese investors to develop business and leisure complexes around the airport.

“Surveys showed the most inconvenient thing for Chinese at the airport was the language barrier,” Park, president and CEO of Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC), said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.

He said Korea will need to take more consideration for Chinese travelers in terms of services and tour programs. “When Incheon completes its second terminal in 2017, we’ll be able to make check-in counters, security checks and immigration desks exclusively for Chinese visitors,” he said.

The CEO of Korea’s main gateway wants to attract more Chinese people for not only trips to Korea but also investment in the International Business Center (IBC), being built near the airport for business and leisure.

“Chinese investors have shown interest in the development of the IBC zone. We hope to establish recreational facilities there such as shopping malls by inviting investment,” he said.

Park said some of the top needs for Chinese travelers are shopping and medical tourism including plastic surgery, so developing medical tourism programs is one of the airport operator’s goals.

“We’ll make efforts to build not only hotels, casinos and convention facilities but also a medical complex. It will be a key factor to attract Chinese tourists,” he said.

Park said such a complex will help increase not only Chinese travelers who come to Korea as a final destination but also those who come here for a stopover, as one of the airport’s top tasks is to raise the number of transfers and stopovers.

Having a large number of transfer passengers is important for an airport to become a regional hub, but the figure at Incheon has been decreasing recently due to rapidly expanding competitors in China and Japan. Some 7.2 million people used transit services at Incheon last year, a drop from 2013’s 7.7 million.

But Park said the competition, especially Chinese airports’ expansion, will also bring an opportunity because it means Chinese people’s demand for air traffic is growing.

“Although Chinese carriers are growing fast and Chinese airports are expanding, they will not be able to deal with the whole number of Chinese passengers. It means spillover to Korean carriers and airports. Also, Korean carriers operate on high-demand routes such as those to the U.S., so we’ll be able to attract Chinese travelers if Korean carriers can offer reasonable air fares.”

Parking fee hike

Although Incheon airport is proud of the quality of its facilities and services, limited parking capacity is one of its headaches as many people bring their cars and leave them there during their trips because the parking fees are very low _ 8,000 won ($7.2) per day for such long-term parking and 12,000 won for one-day parking.

Park said the parking fees were almost double the current prices when the airport opened. But the government recommended the IIAC cut the price, as an expressway to the airport was almost empty and the government had to cover losses of tolls to the private expressway operator.

However, even after the number of expressway users grew and the parking lot became full, it was not easy for the airport to raise the fees again due to a public outcry.

“As we cannot increase supply, we instead plan to raise parking fees. We haven’t decided on how much to increase yet,” the CEO said.

He said the price hike aims at encouraging people to use public transportation rather than their own vehicles, saying KTX bullet trains and airport express trains provide convenient and fast access to the airport and the number of users is increasing.

“I also recommend people use city airport terminals near Samseong Station in southern Seoul or Seoul Station downtown. They can check in, send their luggage and go through immigration control, without having to queue up at the airport,” he said.

Not only the parking lot but also other facilities at Incheon airport have almost reached their full capacities. While the airport’s annual capacity is 44 million passengers, the number of users is increasing 6.7 percent on average annually, and already surpassed the capacity last year, with 45.5 million using it.

“We used to boast of fast check-in, security and immigration processes, all done in 20 to 30 minutes. But now at peak times such as holidays, the processes take almost an hour,” Park said.

The airport is building a second terminal and then it will be able to handle 62 million passengers. But the construction will be completed in 2017, so the IIAC has been trying to relieve congestion by changing domestic flight-only check-in counters to international ones, adding more self-check-in counters and adopting automatic immigration desks.

“We have to hang on until 2017. We’ll discuss with the government and airlines to increase security counters and rearrange flights’ departure and arrival slots,” he said.

Top quality service

The Airports Council International recently picked Incheon airport as the top performer in its Airport Service Quality evaluation for 2014, making Incheon the world’s first airport to win the award for 10 straight years.

Park said the main secret for the unprecedented achievement lies in cooperation among businesses and government agencies operating in the airport.

“We have a service improvement committee where high-profile officials from all related parties, such as customs and immigration offices and carriers, hold regular meetings to share passenger complaints and discuss how to relieve them. Of course working-level meetings are held more frequently. Such joint effort is what makes Incheon different from other airports.”

Through such smooth cooperation and Korea’s high information and communications technology, Incheon has been able to record not a single accident in aircraft operations since its opening in 2001 and help passengers minimize their time spent for departure and arrival processes, he added.

Park said that another secret is an effort to make the airport as a “place beyond airport.”

“Many foreign airport operators still think an airport is a just place for transportation like a bus terminal. But we thought an airport should be a place where visitors can experience culture and enjoy themselves, so we’ve made effort to provide more than an airport’s service,” he said, adding other airports are now using Incheon as a benchmark.

Who is Park Wan-su

Born in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, in 1955, Park majored in public administration at the Korea National Open University and Kyungnam University. He also obtained a doctorate in the same major at the latter school in 2001 while working at the South Gyeongsang Provincial Government.

After passing the state examination for higher civil service, he started his career at the provincial government in 1980. He took major posts there, including head of Hapcheon County, director for economy and trade for the province, and vice mayor of Gimhae.

Park was elected as Changwon mayor in 2004, and served three consecutive terms through February 2014. He was named one of top 10 mayors in the world by the City Mayors Foundation, a London-based think tank on urban affairs, in 2013.

He took the helm of the airport in October 2014.