If you visited Incheon Airport after Jan. 14, you may have noticed that the airport feels noticeably more crowded than before. While the steady growth of international travel naturally fills terminals, the most visible congestion now appears at immigration checkpoints.
In the past, it typically took less than 30 minutes to process about 100 arriving passengers. Recently, however, the same number of passengers can take close to an hour to clear immigration — sometimes even longer during peak periods. Travelers have reported waiting in line for several hours, and in extreme cases, some have felt ill or fainted while standing in crowded queues. This raises an important question of cause.
Some observers attribute the delays to the relocation of flights operated by Asiana Airlines from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. While the move did increase traffic in Terminal 2, arrival schedules remain concentrated in particular time slots and gates, much as they were before. Moreover, this explanation does not account for the similar congestion reported in Terminal 1.
A more fundamental factor appears to be staffing. Despite expectations that passenger numbers would continue to rise, working hours for immigration officers at Incheon Airport were reduced from Jan. 14 as part of an effort to lower wage costs. Without a corresponding increase in personnel, the remaining officers must process larger volumes of travelers within shorter shifts. As a result, officers often move constantly between heavily crowded zones with limited opportunities for rest.
Another contributing factor is the introduction of the Smart Entry Service on Dec. 1, 2025. The program allows travelers from 18 countries to use automated immigration gates after completing a registration process. In practice, however, the system has created an additional step for many passengers.
Before using automated gates, travelers must first complete SES registration. This effectively requires some passengers to wait in two separate lines — one for registration and another for immigration clearance. Because registration itself is handled manually by officers who are already responsible for other duties, the system can unintentionally increase the workload rather than reduce it.
Survey responses from approximately 200 immigration officers suggest that these operational problems are widely recognized on the ground. Nearly all respondents reported experiencing severe congestion in recent months, and many identified inefficient staffing allocation and the current SES registration procedure as major contributors to the delays.
Some officers also provided more specific comments regarding staffing structures around automated gate supervision. Each automated gate zone must be overseen by designated security management personnel responsible for monitoring and access control. When those personnel are unavailable due to leave or illness, multiple automated gates may remain closed even during peak arrival periods.
According to several survey comments, these supervisory roles are sometimes filled through relatively closed or informal hiring networks, which officers say can make staffing adjustments more difficult during periods of sudden congestion. In practice, immigration officers are occasionally reassigned from manual inspection counters to reopen automated gates for Korean passport holders, while foreign passenger lines continue to grow longer.
Under Korea’s Immigration Control Act, foreign nationals are required to undergo inspection by immigration officers upon entry. However, the SES registration process does not always appear to involve the same level of verification typically conducted during manual inspection, such as confirming an address in Korea or the intended length of stay. In addition, travelers’ personal information is collected during registration, sometimes without a clearly explained consent procedure.
Front-line officers are responding by working harder and faster, yet individual effort alone cannot compensate for structural limitations. Inefficient staffing allocation under the current system affects not only foreign visitors but also Korean passport holders who rely on automated gates. In extreme cases, prolonged congestion may even create safety concerns in crowded arrival halls.
Importantly, practical solutions have already been suggested by personnel working on site. These include integrating SES registration and the regular screening process, establishing a dedicated area for SES enrollment, and installing self-service registration kiosks that would reduce the need for manual processing.
The delays currently seen at immigration checkpoints at Incheon Airport are unlikely to be random incidents. Rather, they appear to result from a combination of manpower constraints and institutional design choices that unintentionally amplify operational bottlenecks.
Public systems are rarely perfect when first introduced. What matters is whether they can be adjusted and improved based on the realities faced on the ground — particularly when both efficiency and passenger safety are at stake at one of Asia’s busiest international gateways.
Moon Yewon
Moon Yewon is a public official currently attending a training program at the National Human Resources Institute in Korea. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
