Gimpo International Airport Terminal 2 was opened due to the Olympic Games. However, Gimpo began to take more flights than it is capable of handling. Since 1980, Gimpo met a lot of problems, due to its lack of space to expand. A major problem is that it has a curfew, which means arrivals and departures are strictly prohibited during the night. Due to these problems, the South Korean government decided to build a new airport. It was actually planned in Cheongju, 124 kilometres away from Seoul, but it was strongly opposed by Seoul and Gyeonggi Province citizens due to its inconvenience (it would
Incheon International Airport 19th in the world and eighth in Asia by passenger traffic. In 2016, the airport served a total of 57,849,814 passengers. The airport opened for business in early 2001 to replace the older Gimpo International Airport, which now serves mostly domestic destinations plus shuttle flights to alternate airports in China, Japan, and Taiwan. The airport was originally planned to be built in three phases, incrementally increasing airport capacity as the demand grew. This was changed, however, to four phases after the airport was opened. In Phase 1, the airport had a capacity of 30 million passengers annually, and a cargo