Gimpo International Airport Other UN units based at Gimpo (Kimpo) included: On 21 September 1953 North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok defected in his MiG-15 landing at Gimpo. In 1958, the airport was redesignated as the Gimpo international airport of Seoul by a presidential decree, completely replacing the existing Yeouido Airport. Following the construction of Gimpo, Yeouido Airport was totally demolished. It soon became the main airport of Seoul and South Korea in general. In 1971, a new combined domestic and international terminal was opened. However, following the opening of Terminal 1 in 1977, the original terminal was converted to domestic flights only. Later,
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