Asia's largest airport to open next year

New Inchon airport will replace Seoul's congested Kimpo Airport for international flights.

On land reclaimed from a tidal sea between two small islands, Asia's largest airport is rising like a mirage on a distant horizon.

Still unknown to most South Koreans as well as to the world at large, the airport, when it opens next spring off the port of Inchon 56 kilometres west of Seoul, will replace Seoul's congested Kimpo Airport for international flights. It will also surpass rivals in Japan, Hongkong and Shanghai in terms of size and could serve as a hub for travellers to or from South-east Asia, China, Russia, Europe and the United States.

The prospect of opening Asia's most modern airport provides South Korea with the chance to attract airlines that cancelled service in and out of the country at the height of the economic crisis in 1997 and 1998.

While several airlines have resumed service into Kimpo, others may wait until Inchon is up and running -- and still more may add nonstop service to the United States rather than force travellers to change planes at Japan's overcrowded Narita Airport east of Tokyo.

"Right now, 36 carriers come into Kimpo," said Sung Pil Kyung, general manager of a marketing team combing the world for airlines to fly to Inchon. "We are targeting 45 airlines by the opening, and we hope to get the others to expand their services."

Ambitious project: the US$5.6 billion airport aims to be a hub for travellers to or from South-east Asia, China, Russia, Europe and the US

Jim Miller, managing director of GKMG Consulting Services, a company based in Arlington, Virgina, that contracted to help present the airport's case overseas, promises to "go after a whole series of carriers," including British Airways, Delta, Swissair and Qantas, all of which stopped flying to Kimpo in 1998.

At the same time, he said, "we're in the process of getting direct flights back" -- notably service by Northwest Airlines and United Airlines, both of which stopped flying nonstop to the United States from Seoul in 1998.

"We believe what's going on in the Korean economy, plus the capabilities of Inchon, will give the airlines what they need to become profitable here," Mr Miller said. "With all Asia recovering economically, Inchon is in a very good position."

Eight years after workers began reclaiming enough land from the sea to cover the 1,174 hectares needed for the airport, "everything's on schedule, 90 per cent of the process has been achieved," said Kim Kyo Joon, chief operating officer for the project. "We don't expect any major problems," he said.

Inchon airport planners say they believe they have conquered the problems of baggage and cargo delivery that bogged down Hongkong's new Chek Lap Kok airport in mid-1997 by constructing a backup semi-automatic system in case automatic facilities fail.

One advantage is that they are not under the deadline pressure that confronted contractors at the new Hongkong facility, who rushed to finish work before the handover of the territory from Britain to China nearly three years ago. "If something goes wrong, we can do it again," one Inchon airport worker said. But passengers arriving at Inchon still may have other complaints.

For the first few years of the airport's existence, its only link to the mainland will be a two-tiered bridge, with six lanes on the top level and four on the lower level, stretching 4.4 kilometres from one of the islands on which the airport is built to the mainland near downtown Inchon. Airport planners say the ride on the six-lane expressway from there to Kimpo Airport will be only 25 minutes -- followed by another 20-minute ride to downtown Seoul. But the planners are braced for horrendous traffic jams.

"For now there is no other way to get there except by ferry boat," said Mr. Sung. A two-track railroad linking the airport to the mainland, via the lower deck of the bridge, will not begin running for another five years, and it is not clear when construction will begin on another bridge linking the airport to a new high-technology city on the southern fringes of Inchon.

The railroad was delayed for two years, according to industry sources, when the leaders of South Korea's chaebol, or conglomerates, said they did not have the money for the project, which may cost as much as US$5 billion (S$8.5 billion) -- nearly as much as the US$5.6 billion price of the airport itself.

Seoul finally agreed to provide guarantees for a consortium that is still negotiating final arrangements for the railroad. At the same time, the government is paying 40 percent of the cost of the airport while Inchon International Airport Corp., supported by private investment, is responsible for the remaining 60 percent.

There are other problems looming as well.

"We won't have hotel facilities in time for the airport opening," Mr Kim said, attributing the delay in construction on the economic crisis. Hotels owned by Korean Air and J W Marriott will provide upward of 1,000 rooms beginning in 2002, but that will not be nearly enough to accommodate all the passengers, particularly those spending just a few hours or a night here between catching airplanes.

"We have laid space to accommodate more hotels," Mr Kim said, "but that depends on the economy."

Economic problems, however, have not delayed construction of the airport, which has been designed by Bechtel and built by the combined efforts of just about every major South Korean construction company. Ultimately planners expect the airport to transform the economy of Inchon, a bleak industrial city of 2.3 million people with few of the glistening high-rises that dominate modern Seoul. The city is expanding its port facilities, which are a distant second in South Korea to the south-eastern port city of Pusan, for transhipment of cargo from ships to planes and is committed to building a third bridge to the airport.

Planners also dream of the day when a high-speed railroad will link the airport to North Korea -- and to the Russian port of Vladivostok. "Inchon would be an ideal point to begin," said Mr Kim. "There is a plan for it. We are ready." -- AP

The Shipping Times Singapore.
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg
------------------------------------------------------