Seoul is struggling to meet targets for its new airport.
Paul Lewis/SEOUL
THE GROWING IMPORTANCE of Asia as a world economic powerhouse is best illustrated by the fact there are no less than four major new international airports, either being planned or built in the region. One of the more ambitious Asian "airtropolises" under construction is the new $5.5 billion Inchon International Airport to serve South Korean capital Seoul.
South Korea, like its Japanese neighbour, has a large industrial population, but a scarce amount of inhabitable land. When it came to solving the problem of Seoul's increasingly over-congested Kimpo International Airport, therefore, the only real answer was to go offshore.
The result has been the reclamation of a 5,615ha (13,864 acres) site between two islands in Kyung-Ki Bay, 15km (8nm) off the coast from Inchon. The platform is more than four times the size of other recently reclaimed airport projects at either Kansai, in Japan, or Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok (CLK).
The Inchon site has been designed to accommodate up to four parallel runways, two passengers terminals and four interconnecting satellite concourses. Supporting developments will include three air-cargo terminals, airline-maintenance sites, two commercial business areas and an 875ha residential area.
The Korea Airport Construction Authority (KOACA) has divided the programme into four separate development phases, extending out to 2020. On completion of the fourth and final phase, the airport will be capable of handling 530,000 aircraft movements, 100 million passengers and 7 million tonnes of cargo a year. The project is budgeted to cost $20 billion, although analysts suspect this may reach $30 billion.
The airport is already over budget and three years behind its original phase-one schedule. Revised planning now calls for the airport to open for commercial traffic in 2001, and KOACA marketing consultant Anders Westman believes that it is possible to achieve that.
LAND RECLAMATION
KOACA's target opening date is contingent on a "multitude of factors", argues Westman. "It's one thing to be building an airport like they did in Denver [Colorado], which is on a stable piece of ground and relatively flat to begin with-but whenever you're doing reclamation, there is a host of geological and soil problems that could develop as you go. You're dealing with a tremendous modification in nature."
Compared to Kansai, though, land reclamation at Inchon has so far proved far less problematic. The site is located between two islands and is exposed at low tide, while the underlying bedrock is only 5m (16ft) down. Water has been pumped out and the overlying soft soil stabilised though the use of 400mm-diameter vertical sandpipes, to expedite drainage.
The biggest challenge to Inchon's projected 2001 opening date is the completion of a planned 4.4km-long suspension bridge linking the adjoining Yongjong Island with the mainland. In spite of a contract having been awarded to Samsung, design work is lagging and construction work has yet to begin.
Talk of using ferries as an interim measure before the bridge is finished is dismissed by most observers as a commercial non-starter. Connected to the double-deck bridge is a twin-track rail line and a 40km-long eight-lane airport expressway, linking Inchon with Kimpo and downtown Seoul.
Westman remains optimistic that the bridge will be finished in time. "It was originally though that, with the airport opening in 2000, the bridge would not be completed. With the extension of the project, that gives some lag time for the bridge to catch up," he says.
INITIAL CAPABILITY
Construction of the airport in the meantime is continuing to pick up speed, with key contracts due to be awarded over the next 18 months. They include those for air-traffic control, the baggage-handling system (BHS), the master integration system and airport concessions.
Under phase one, the airport plans to begin operations with one 357,000m2 (3.8 million ft2) passenger terminal, equipped with two finger piers, 44 airbridges and 18 remote aircraft-stands. The five-storey building will have 256 check-in counters and be capable of handling a maximum of 27 million passengers annually.
Inchon will open with a single 3,750m (12,300ft)-long runway and an initial operating capacity of up to 170,000 aircraft movements a year. It will be equipped with navigational aids for Category IIIa operations down to 200m visibility. KOACA claims that local weather does not drop below this operating minimum for more than 42h a year on average. It nonetheless plans to upgrade the runways to Cat IIIb.
Work in the first phase will also include provision for a second non-independent parallel runway. The timetable for its completion hinges on demand and funding. "The second runway is really phase one-and-half-with the site development already done, it can be achieved in eight months," claims Westman.
Longer-term expansion includes provision of a second pair of parallel runways to be built 2,075m to the west, allowing for independent operations. The area in between the two sets of runways has been tentatively set aside for up to four remote passenger-concourses.
A second terminal immediately to the south of the first is also on the drawing board. Terminal floorspace will be increased ultimately to 1.12 million m2 by the 2020 build-out date. With the addition of four satellite concourses, the number of boarding gates will similarly grow, to 153.
The two terminals and concourses will be connected by a basement-level intra airport transit (IAT) system, carrying up to 14,000 passengers an hour. The main terminal buildings and adjoining business centre will also be linked by a second-floor "people-mover" system (PMS), ferrying up to 10,000 travellers an hour.
A six-storey integrated transportation centre will be built to provide an interchange between the IAT, PMS, BHS and airport railway. The 16,000m2 building, which will also house the apron control-tower, will be sited between passenger terminals one and two.
Other areas for future development will be freight and aircraft maintenance as international operations gradually shift from Kimpo to Inchon. Three twin cargo-handling sites are planned, including one each for Korean Air (KAL) and Asiana Airlines. The airport's initial 1.7 million tonnes capacity will be increased to 7 million tonnes by the end of phase four.
Phase two of the airport's development is loosely pencilled in for a window of 2005-10, but the precise timing and scope of work to be undertaken remains fairly fluid. "It depends on how fast demand starts out-stripping capacity. If we maintain our 10% growth rate, even with Kimpo still operating, we're going to run out of space quickly," predicts Westman.
JUMBO CHALLENGE
With the expectation that both Airbus Industrie and Boeing will have launched their planned 650-seat widebodies by the time Inchon opens, KOACA designers are keeping a close eye on the specifications of the new aircraft. Inchon will need to accommodate aircraft typically up to 85m or more in length, with a wingspan of 77m and a maximum take-off weight fast approaching 1.3 million tonnes.
"The key is not going to be weight, it's going to be load capacity on the axles," says Westman. "We have been told in meetings with Boeing and Airbus that future plans will take into account current load capacities around the world."
Aside from aircraft loads on the runway and taxiways, the other major concern for international airport authorities is the size of the projected new aircraft. KOACA is now designing some of the airport's gates to handle either the Boeing 747-600X or Airbus A3XX.
The future success of Inchon as an international hub will depend not so much on the airport's capability to handle new large aircraft, but more on its ability to attract transit traffic.
KAL and Asiana have been so overwhelmed by trying to keep pace with home-grown demand that neither has been able to develop any real international transit business to speak of. This, and a comparatively protective aero-political structure, has so far prevented Seoul from stealing much traffic away from Tokyo.
With the construction of a new, 24h-operation, international airport at Inchon and the severe operating constraints now being experienced at Narita as the result of its single runway, there is perhaps no better opportunity for South Korea to challenge Japan's position as the northern gateway to Asia. "For that to happen, we have got to keep our operating costs low and we have got to have those runways built so that we have the operational flexibility that Narita doesn't," says Westman.
Source: Flight International
