#airportsNominees ’26

Seoul Incheon

INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA

Incheon International Airport (IATA: ICN) is the principal international gateway for Seoul, South Korea's capital. It lies west of Incheon's city centre on reclaimed land that joined Yeongjong and Yongyu islands. The airport opened in March 2001 and took over international traffic from Gimpo, which now mostly handles domestic and short regional flights.

Skytrax ranked Incheon No. 2 in the World's Top 100 Airports 2026, up from No. 4 in 2025. Travel + Leisure readers placed it No. 10 among international airports in 2025, with a score of 83.67, and No. 7 in 2026. In the 2025 list Travel + Leisure also describes it as a WBA Hall of Fame honoree.

The airport was built because air traffic grew after the 1988 Seoul Olympics and Gimpo could no longer cope. Construction started in November 1992 and took eight years plus six months of testing; completion was delayed from 1997 by the Asian economic crisis. Today the airport has 111 boarding gates across Terminal 1, Concourse A and Terminal 2, and in 2006 an Airbus A380 landed there during its certification tour.

Sources of this text: Wikipedia · Skytrax · Travel + Leisure

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