Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Well signposted in Korean and English, a good sized airport |
| Disadvantages: |
A very long 36 kilometres from Seoul, with little convenient public transport |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
*****HISTORY******
The award winning Incheon International Airport, situated on Yeongjong Island to the west of Seoul, is the airport you are most likely to fly into when you are visiting South Korea. Although some of the airport is, to a great extent, a work in progress, the main passenger terminal is fully operational, and has been since 2001 and serves well over 50 international airlines, connecting the far flung corners of the globe.
*****FACILITIES*******
Much thought has gone into providing great facilities for the passengers and there are a wide variety of shops and restaurants at your disposal from cocktail bars to ice cream parlours, fashion stores to grocery stores. There is even a dental clinic should you need it! In particular I ran riot in the Shinsegae Department store buying souvenir Kimchi ( a Korean speciality, cabbage preserved in red chilli paste. It can be good or, well, less good...) for all my friends and relatives, regardless of whether they are partial to fermented vegetables or not. Time will tell whether I keep my friends.
******TRANSPORT LINKS*******
By 2010 there should be a reasonable public transport link from the Airport to Seoul, in the form of The Incheon International Airport Railroad. Unfortunately that was no good for me in May 2006 which meant I was at the mercy of the other options.
You could get the free shuttle bus ( if you can catch one of the ten that run every day) to Airport Town Square, a brand new town a few kilometers from the actual airport consisting of restaurants, shops, hotels and residential accommodation. Or you could get a taxi into Incheon itself. In fact you could get a bus into Incheon for only 5000 Won ( about £2.40 GPB) but it would take an hour...
If you fancy the public transport route and have made it to Incheon then your best bet would be to get the subway from Incheon station. This is on line one (dark purple - Seoul's subways are colour coded and numbered. The system is easy to use and very cheap) and would take you all the way to Uljeongbu Bukbu station via Seoul station ( about 70 min to Seoul station where you can interchange with line 4 / blue to Danggogae and Oido). At time of writing the ticket should cost no more than 1100 Won ( about £7.30 GBP). The ticket machines are easy to use and are labelled in English as well as Korean, and give you the price from where you are to every stop on the subway. You could always get a bus from outside the subway station if you knew where you were heading ( and you weren't in a hurry).
There are public buses - the bus to Seoul is the number 601 - but personally I find getting public buses in a country where I don't speak ( or recognise) even a little of the language can be a bit of an ordeal: you have no idea where they're going to set you down and how to get to your hotel and, if you're tired after a long haul flight, even little problems seem like much bigger problems! However if you are feeling brave it could be worth a shot. I, however, was not feeling that brave. In addition to the public buses there are more expensive limousine buses running, amongst other places, to Seoul City Hall and Seoul Station, but this was not an option that was at all clear to me at the time. Definitely something the airport could do with publicising more.
There are numerous taxis to be found outside the airport, usually white/silver (there are some black ones too, which tend to be more expensive; these start with a minimum fee, but once you have exceeded that, the mileage rate is usually cheaper so it depends on your final destination. Comfort levels - and driving styles are pretty much interchangeable) and both are clearly marked as taxis. For a trip to Seoul you can expect to pay about 37,000 Won (£22.00 GBP) for the standard white/silver taxis and about 65,000 Won (£40.00 GBP) in a deluxe black taxi. You will also be expected to pay any toll fares; into Seoul you could pass through 3 separate Tolls costing in the region of 5000 Won (£3.20GBP) each. The advantage of getting a deluxe taxi is that you will not be expected to share with other passengers going the same direction. General advice is that you will help yourself enormously if you have written down your destination in advance as English is not necessarily widely spoken although most taxi's offer a free in-car telephone translator. In the 9 weeks that I was in
Korea I found it was a hit and miss process communicating with taxi drivers. and I relied on a trusty bit of paper that said "Please take me to (insert name of hotel)" in Korean which I kept with me at all times.
There are also car hire facilities at the airport, but I wouldn't necessarily suggest driving in the Far East after a long haul flight, unless you enjoy taking your life into your hands…
******THE AIRPORT********
The airport as a whole is easy to use, well signposted and clearly labelled in English and Korean. It is brighly lit and well stocked with all the right shops in all the right places. It is not too large either so you don't get lost wandering around trying to find the right departure gate. The duty free shops are not quite as extensive as I would have liked though, but that is in comparison to big airports like Heathrow.
*********MY EXPERIENCE*********
I was fortunate enough to be flying Business class to and from the UK, so my journey home after a hard 2 month contract started comfortably enough with a couple of hours waiting in the Business class 'Morning Calm' lounge on the second floor of the departure hall. Fruit juice, tea, coffee and alcohol of most shapes and sizes was available along with cereal, fruit, youghurt, croissants, biscuits and olives. Newspapers and some magazines in a variety of languages were available, and tv screens were broadcasting an English-speaking news channel at a civilised volume. You can leave your hand luggage in the lounge while you wander round the duty free shops deciding what Kimchi or Soju (anothe Korean delicacy - the local liqueur is a kind of sweet potato vodka and is absolutely lethal. It creeps up on you and after three glasses you lose the ability to stand up at all - apparently - of course I have never tried any...) to buy. However in the current climate I would not advocate leaving your belongings anywhere - business class lounge or not!
However my first experience of Incheon Airport (arriving from the UK) was standing at baggage retrieval after a long-haul flight only to discover that someone else had mistakenly taken my luggage from the conveyor belt. The airport staff were very helpful and reassuring despite my tears ( of frustration and concern over having no undies for the next 8 long weeks - not to mention the jet-lag)and when my luggage was returned to the airport the following morning by the hapless travellor who had mistaken my suitcase for theirs, the airport staff had reunited me with my possesions within a few short hours.
All of the staff I encountered were polite and helpful - nothing seems to be too much trouble. The only major downside of the airport is the location. It is a long way from Seoul itself, and at present the public transport service to the airport is virtually nonexistant, so you do have to rely on taxis. However in comparison to some airports I have visited recently (*cough* Lisbon *cough*), it rounds off or starts a journey perfectly comfortably.
