South Korea's Muan International Airport will be expanded to accommodate large jumbo jets that can carry over 400 passengers, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said Monday.
Quoting the ministry, Yonhap news agency reported Monday that it plans to improve the capacity of the airport, located 385 kilometers south of Seoul, to handle planes as large as Boeing's 747-400s.
Muan International Airport is one of the large pieces of the project building a new city (남악신도시) at Namak-ri, Muan county, the capital of Jeollanam-do since 2005. Formerly a small administrative division of a few thousand, the city next to Mokpo is expected to reach 150,000 people when it's finished in 2019. The airport was completed in 2007, after several years of delays, and has been operating at well below capacity since the beginning, leading one to question why they need jumbo jets when they can't get enough people to fill them. It's one of Korea's "ghost airports," is operating at 3% capacity, and handled only 32,201 passengers on international flights last year making it the second least-busiest airport in the country behind the one in Cheongju. ROK Drop guest-blogger NC47 posted some pictures of the inactivity there last week.
The article goes on to bring up a good point, though:
The ministry said that increasing the capacity of the airport that was opened in November 2007 could allow the Jeolla region in the country's southwestern tip to attract more international events and travellers.
Nearby Yeongam will host the 2010 Formula One World Championship Race on Oct 22 to 24.
3 comments:
It'll be interesting to see the effect this has on Gwangju International. It's nice having that airport so close to the city (but loud if you live nearby). One thing to consider though is the price of a flight, because that ultimately determines who flies from where give or take.
Currently, it's more expensive to fly out from Gwangju than say Incheon. Even factoring in bus money it's still more which is why Gwangju (and I suspect Muan) have a hard time competing with Incheon.
That being said, a bigger runway means farther distances. If they were to close Gwangju (and I believe that's part of the plan) then Muan might grow but I think it definitely has to be cost effective or at least not much more than Incheon for passengers to start heading from there...
I never had the opportunity to fly out of Muan. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen it.
I don't follow the news out of Muan too closely, so I don't know what it's like there, other than knowing it's not busy. As I'll be posting in a few hours, they've scheduled a few flights this summer to Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia to accommodate special trips.
I imagine business at Muan will pick up for the 2012 Expo in Yeosu (though I heard several years ago they were going to have the airport in Yeosu accommodate international flights for a limited time), the 2013 Garden Expo in Suncheon, and the 2015 Universiade in Gwangju.
The Gwangju Airport is nice to have, and really a city that size should have its own airport, and I expect fighting to continue between Jeollanam-do and Gwangju over air traffic.
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