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First Plane Lands at S. Korea's New Incheon Airport
Incheon International Airport, the new gateway to South Korea built at a cost of nearly $5 billion, opened to business on Thursday.
The first jetliner to land at the airport, located 50 kilometers west of Seoul, was an Asiana Airlines flight from Bangkok, which touched down shortly before 5 a.m.
The airport is built on an offshore site between two islands and is intended to replace Seoul's Kimpo airport as South Korea's international gateway.
Designed to accommodate departures and landings around the clock, Incheon could become a new international hub for airlines operating in Northeast Asia.
Incheon, which has two 4,000-meter runways and a passenger terminal with 44 gates, has a capacity to handle 170,000 flights and 27 million passengers a year, well above Kansai airport's current capacity.
Four runways are being planned for the future, making it the largest airport in Asia with a capacity to handle 100 million passengers annually.
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