koreaspondent

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Inchon Airport: A World Best Air Hub!

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Need I say anything else? This phrase completely makes the point that this entry is intended to make: just as this phrase is phonetically dysfunctional, the Inchon Airport is also functionally dysfunctional. Does that sentence even make sense? I guess in talking about the Inchon Airport, nothing needs to.

I liked the Inchon Airport the first few times I used it. Lots of convenient carts, no lines at immigration or security, lots of food places to choose from, no stupid trains to ride to get to terminals, a complete dual-level structure to separate the comers from the goers, and a goofy, but nice architecture. However, the airport has grown into a beast of a bad airport over the years.

1. Shitty toll fees: I like cruising the airport quickly as much as the next guy, but every time I go through that damn set of tollgates and get kicked in the balls for 7,400 KRW, I feel a lot of resentment. Only the kick in the balls I get going back out makes me more resentful at the retards in the Korean government that allowed a private company to own the road to the airport.



2. As long as I’m on transportation, how about those taxi drivers from hell? You get attacked by these dudes as soon as you come out the gate asking if you need a taxi. I used to dislike those dudes, until I met the dudes sitting in line at the taxi stand. The difference? The dudes inside are Seoul taxis who brought people out to the airport. Actually, they are willing to negotiate, will often follow the meter, and even will let you pay with a credit card if you meet the right dude. However, you need to be careful to negotiate the tollgate fee: nothing is more painful than a kick in the balls when you are a passenger, and not even the owner of the car. If you make the mistake of getting past those guys, you get to the Inchon Taxis from Hell. They will go by the meter, and then charge you double for having to go back to the airport empty. They will let you get kicked in the balls at the airport gate, and they won’t take your credit cards. I only had the experience of dealing with one of those scumbags once, and I was out of his slime-hole within 10 seconds of getting in. I went straight back in to find a Seoul taxi. This is the kind of taxi service provided at a World Best Hub?



3. Trains: So they finally got smart and decided to build a train, an attempt to catch up with real world class airports, like the Hong Kong airport, which has a fabulous train. Well, not unlike the way the whole airport operates, the train is slightly retarded too. First, it is 7 years late. Most places try to build at the time the grand airport is built. Second, it stops pretty far away, although a fact that can be overcome. Third, it only goes to that Gimpy airport near Seoul. Apparently it is being extended to Seoul Station and City hall, which will make it nice, but until it does, it is just a useless little train. I guess the redeeming feature is that it does not kick you in the balls when you pass the tollgates.



4. That retard of a green house: I’m talking about the world designed maze of




escalators and elevators that leads from the train to the airport. Every try getting to the airport with luggage or a cart? Well, to move up to the mid-level floor, you have to go up 1 full floor, and then down one more. I don’t know how the math works, or maybe they thought you needed something to do during your three hour wait (does anybody really show up that early any more), but whatever, it takes time and it is retarded. This dyslexic design is one more gleaming jewel at the World Best Hub. I once thought I would walk down the center of the thing and out the end to the long-term parking lot. I was on the ground floor and assumed there would be a door. I went through this awful green house thing with all kinds of plants, only to get to the end and find no exit. That is a fire hazard. Maybe I will burn it down and solve the problem.

You also find many of the elevators with this helpful sign on them. First, if you don’t read Korean, you wouldn’t know what it said, second if you do, you would be pissed, because you would understand that this World Best Hub doesn’t have enough money to run its elevators, so it is “saving energy”.



5. So now that you got to the airport, and got through the fairly convenient check-in, let’s get some grub. That’s nice, there’s a BK, a Lotteria, and a McDonalds in the basement. Then a bunch of no-name crap. Oh wait, they remodeled. Now there’s half a BK, a McDonalds that raised it’s prices because it’s rent doubled, a Lotteria, and even more no-name crap. Well, screw that, I’ll go inside to get Subway, BK, or KFC in that spacious food court. Just a note here as I am going through security, if that idiot at the entrance ever tells you your luggage is too big to carry on, give her the bird, and walk to one of the other 150 entrances into the security area. I wanted to just tell her she is the dumbest lady in the world, but I guess I won’t break her little dream bubble of happiness in knowing she stopped evil foreigners from using up all the overhead space on the airplane. Ok, now that I’m past security, lets go get some Subway, BK, or KFC. What? They got rid of the food court in exchange for an overpriced cosmetics, liquor, or purse shop?
3. Remodeling: So they decided that they weren’t getting enough money back from all of us evil foreigners leaving the country with the money we earned from the poor Koreans, so they got rid of those low-revenue food shops and got in those high-revenue duty free shops. Well, there was a judgment error somewhere in there. They forgot that unlike Koreans, not everyone else in the world likes overpriced cosmetics, purses, and liquor. Maybe that’s why there is a sudden lack of dollars. It all left at the airport. Now I have to go up to the fourth floor to get my burger. At least the Subway is still on the departure level, albeit at the very end, and small enough to be missed if you don’t squint and look closely.

I think this pictures does an excellent job of showing the great ability the leaders of this great airport have in deciding what to put where and what concepts will work. Might as well just bring in the Yeongdungpo Girls and put them with electronics too. I'm sure it would be more popular than the ginseng.



6. Terminal 2: So the Inchon Airport never struck me as the busiest airport. However, they go with Kevin Costner’s philosophy that relates to something about building and coming. If all the other World Best Hubs out there were poorly planned enough to have to build a second terminal, then shouldn’t the Inchon Airport too? So during remodeling, they went ahead and added it. So now the previously not-busy airport, looks even less busy because all the foreign airlines went out to the second terminal. I imagine they didn’t want to pay whatever exorbitant fees are charged to park at terminal one.

If anyone ever meets the misfit that heads up that airport, please give him a nice fist to the stomach for me. I want to thank him for the great job he has done in creating a world best hub.

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