Foreign passengers wait in line to clear immigration at the arrivals hall of Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1, Friday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hwan-jik
Foreign travelers arriving in Korea through Incheon International Airport can expect a long wait at the immigration counters.
The lengthy queues were apparent at Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Friday, where foreign visitors stood waiting to clear immigration.
The line stretched beyond the 10 waiting lanes marked out by retractable belt barriers. Chaos ensued near the entrance as 300 to 400 new arrivals spilled into an already packed waiting area. Three or four guides from the Korea Immigration Service’s Incheon Airport office and an airport subsidiary were on hand, but they could do little to ease the confusion.
As the line stretched, so did the wait. Passengers who reached the immigration counters at around noon were not processed until after 1:20 p.m. That 80-minute wait was not far behind the disruption seen during this year’s Lunar New Year holiday from Feb. 16-18, when the entire arrival process for foreign travelers took as long as one hour and 54 minutes and was described as an “immigration crisis.”
