Incheon Airport

✅ Trip Verified | I felt that I wanted to review Incheon Airport now having lived in Korea for ten years and having used the airport many many times. But the experience this last weekend, the week before they will host the winter Olympics, was completely unacceptable. Even departing from Incheon airport three weeks earlier to fly to Manchester via Helsinki, the security line is getting ridiculous now. Incheon has always prided itself on its placing in the top three airports in the world, but there are parts of it that are seriously undermining its position. What has triggered me to write this now was the wait at the passport checking. There was a wait for an hour, with only three staff checking about 400 or 500 passengers on a Saturday about midday. There were 'supervisors' but they seemed to be more interested in getting through the Olympic athletes who had a separate line with five staff checking passports. Obviously, there were not that many athletes, 30 or 40 at most. You need to react to passengers waiting, these are the ones who write these reviews. What made things worse for me, bar the fact I'd flown for 14 hours, and then waited an hour for the passport check was that my suitcases came out of carousel 21 near exit F. As I approached the carousel, I was asked by an airport official if I was an athlete, to which I said 'no', 'oh you can't use this exit, it's only for athletes'. I wasn't using the exit, I was going to the carousel to get my cases, I had no interest in using exit F. Again, and having lived in Korea for ten years, they are more interested in image than substance. I hope the Olympics is a success, but you have to remember the other passengers if you want to be considered in the world's top airports. Staffing should never be an issue. Secondly, and this happens a lot when I travel through the airport is their lack of special diet food. I've been a vegetarian for nearly thirty-years and living in Korea, I know of their obsession with meat and fish, but as an international airport, you have to cater for special diets which they continually don't do. Both in departures, convenience stores and airside there are no options which is ridiculous. My trip involved 8 flights, mostly around Europe, all of which had a number of special diet options in those airports. Not at Incheon though. I write each time I fly through there about it in their feedback section and get the usual, 'We're looking into it' reply back.

✅ Trip Verified | No issues with cleanliness and friendliness of people working at the Terminal 2 of ICN only that I'm super disgusted of the rule that this airport is not serving hot water. I can definately understand if I can be explained why but none of the staffs can explain. Every restaurant has a sign saying no serving of hot water! Other than that, ICN airport is close to perfect.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport is crowded at both landside and airside. There are some queueing at the customs, but acceptable. On the airside, there are tons of duty free shops selling cosmetic products and luxury goods at competitive price. The tax refund process is easy and smooth. However, on the airside, the map does not show where the tax refund area is, weird. The lighting on the secondary terminal (used by foreign airlines, not KE/OZ) is significantly dimmer than the main terminal( which serves mainly KE/OZ flights), a bit weird. At the gate, the monitor showing the flight number and boarding status is quite dim, not easy for reading the content. But generally, the lighting, signs, seating are pretty good.

❎ Not Verified | The cleanliness of Incheon Airport is very clear and the automatic immigration system is very good compared to that of other airports. The workers are also very friendly and have robots that match the names of high-tech airports. We will also look forward to the second passenger terminal, which will open in February.

✅ Trip Verified | Arrived at the airport 2 hours before departure. There were only 5 check-in counters open so I had to at the check-in counter for more than 1 hour until the staff call out my flight. Not only me, even locals got angry. I was lucky that I can use the automatic immigration otherwise I would definitely have missed my flight. The train between main terminal and the remote concourse was so infrequent that you may not get on the first train that arrives.

✅ Verified Review | Great, unless you want to eat. Restaurants in the secure area are few and far between. Two food courts are on the second floor, but with poor signage, inadequate escalators, narrow passageways, and few choices.

❎ Unverified | It's big, it's modern, it's high tech, but if you're getting a late flight, you'll be disappointed with duty free stores and restaurants, they all close after 9.30pm. I had no problems with lines or immigration, the seats are comfortable, bathrooms are very clean. There's free high speed wifi and the staff are attentive and cordial, although most do not have fluent English.

✅ Verified Review | The arrival process at this airport was good. I had to walk almost 800 meters from the arrival gate to immigration. The immigration process was taking around 15 minutes. Really appreciate the Korean technology to make the process even faster. Unfortunately, it did not happen when it comes to departures. There are 10 baggage drop-off check-in counters but only two were open. Long queue was forming but the ground staff did not care. Then, I had to wait around 25 minutes just to clear security check before immigration. I thought, as Incheon is one of big airports, it should have some restaurants open after immigration. There is no life in the airport after 9.30 pm, as all restaurants, cafes or shops are closed at 9.30 pm.

✅ Verified Review | It was in the morning, around 8-9am. And the airport was was as crowded as a shopping mall in discount season. In front of every check in counter, there were many people, not sure if they were queuing or waiting for something. At the security check, the queue was extremely long. Clearly, the customs could not handle this amount of passenger traffic. In the end, I spent almost an hour to pass the security check and customs to reach the airside. This is something I did not expect from a high rating airport. For the hardware, it was all good. The terminal is new, clean and modern, easily assessed from the airport express train station. The signs are all clear. The lighting is great. There are many shops on the airside for shopping. Sadly though, the time all goes to queueing. The toilet is clean and large, with no disgusting smell. The tax refund process is very simple, much easier than I expected. Interestingly, there was only a short queue on the landside for processing the refund. Even more surprisingly, there was no queue on the airside to get the cash refund. And on both side, there are helpers to help you with the refund. Excellent service. It is Nothing like the tax refund in Europe, where they just make everything troublesome, difficult and not noticeable to prevent you from getting the refund which you deserve.

✅ Verified Review | My round trip with Asiana Airlines from Tokyo to Shenzhen transited at Incheon airport. The queuing time for transiting and security checking was very short around 30 minutes only. In addition, there were several food stores and shopping malls for enjoying during transit time. I hope to back to here in the future.