Foreign travellers arriving in South 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 1.20pm. That 80-minute wait was not far behind the disruption seen during this year’s Lunar New Year holiday from February 16-18, when the entire arrival process for foreign travellers took as long as one hour and 54 minutes and was described as an “immigration crisis”.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, meanwhile, recommends keeping immigration waiting times within 45 minutes.
A primary reason for the congestion is the surging number of foreign visitors to South Korea.
The number of foreign arrivals reached 2.04 million in June, up from 1.74 million during the same month last year, according to data released on Monday by the Korea Immigration Service. The first-half total rose 20.6 per cent to 11.05 million, from 9.15 million over the same period last year.