Kimpo, or Gimpo, is the old gateway to South Korea's capital city, Seoul. Since March 2001 the new airport at Incheon has opened, providing international travellers with a modern, sophisticated airport capable of serving the needs of the most demanding traveller.
That leaves Gimpo as the main domestic terminal. It is not a bad airport as a simple domestic terminal. Because so few domestic travellers check their bags in, the baggage handling works really well, with bags arriving within minutes of the plane landing.
Check-in is also fast, with no silly 1-hour-before restrictions, though there is a Won 3000 (£1.50) departure tax payable in cash.
To give an idea of timing, my flight from London was scheduled to arrive at Incheon just before 5pm, and despite landing a few minutes late, I managed to get to Gimpo on the regular shuttle bus (Won 4000) in time to check in for the 7 pm flight to Busan. Not something I'd like to repeat too often, but it shows that Gimpo is easy to navigate around, and works well.
Once through check-in, you go through security to the gate. Again, not bad for a domestic terminal, which handles large numbers of flights, each of which is full. There are snack bars, but I found it impossible to get a beer at the gate. That's probably becauswe my Korean is non-existant. There was, however, time to get a drink of juice and finish it before getting on the flight.
They call the flight with seconds to spare, and you had better get there quickly, as the window for getting on the plane is extremely limited. And despite being near the front of the queue when the gate opened, I somehow managed to get on the plane last.
Something to do with not understanding how to push past people as effectively as the Koreans!
Overall, it's a good airport for domestic flights, but I'd have hated to use it as the main international terminal.
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