Incheon International Airport of 1988, international air traffic to Korea increased. In the 1990s, it became apparent that Gimpo International Airport could not cope with the increase in air traffic. To reduce the load on Gimpo International Airport, the government decided to build a new airport. The new airport was originally planned to be located in Cheongju, 124 km from Seoul, but due to its distance, it was opposed by Seoul and Gyeonggi citizens. Hwaseong was the other choice, but it was also rejected due to similar reasons. Finally the area chosen was Incheon. In November 1992, the construction of the Incheon airport
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