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| Duty free zone at Incheon International Airport is crowded with outbound travelers, April 3, as the airport saw a 64 percent recovery in international passengers number from the pre-pandemic levels from 2019. Newsis |
By Lee Hae-rin
Incheon International Airport, the country's biggest and largest international air transport hub, plans to reinforce security inspection measures amid steep increases in passengers from a tourism rebound, Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC) announced, Thursday.
The measures come as the airport saw a series of security breaches this year, including two rounds of live ammunition found on a Korean Air plane that was about to take off from the airport bound for Manila last month.
A knife also went unnoticed during security screening and was discovered with a Chinese passenger at the boarding gate, last Thursday, while two Kazakhstani nationals climbed over a fence near a runway and fled the airport, March 26, with one of them being captured in Daejeon two weeks later.
The IIAC plans to enhance security measures in response to these incidents. The plan includes installing advanced monitoring technology with CT X-ray in departure and transit gates of all terminals by 2025. The technology, which is expected to minimize human error in detecting dangerous items, is currently only available in some departure gates of Terminal 1.
The airport will also increase the hiring of aviation security personnel and provide them with customized education programs and incentives to enhance their expertise.
The airport, which has a top global security reputation, has never had an accident that resulted in human or property damages in the 22 years since its establishment in 2001.
In the first quarter of this year, the airport saw more than 11.4 million international passengers which is a 1,052.6 percent increase compared to the same period last year, the IIAC said at a press conference, Thursday.
The recovery is driven by tourists from neighboring Asian countries, including Japan.
To prepare for the further increases in passengers forecast for the peak summer season, the airport plans to expand bus services by 80 percent of previous operations by September. Only 50 percent of the bus services are available compared to the pre-pandemic levels as of April.
In May, the airport will launch four additional night bus routes to Dongdaemun and Jamsil of Seoul; and Gwangju and Bucheon of Gyeonggi Province.
The IIAC expects that by the end of the year, there will be up to 53 million international passengers using the airport, yielding an estimated average of 145,000 daily passengers. This shows a 76 percent recovery from the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, which saw 70.5 million passengers.
China's lifting of tourist group visas is proving pivotal to the recovery of the airport and inbound travel, the IIAC said.
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