Incheon airport weighs parking fee hike to curb congestion

An aircraft prepares for takeoff as the long-term parking lot at Incheon International Airport Terminal 2 is filled with travelers’ vehicles, Aug. 4, 2024. The airport expected 232,000 international passengers that day, marking the peak of the summer travel season. Korea Times photo by Choi Joo-yeon

For Lee, a 45-year-old resident of Seoul’s Gangbuk District, deciding how to travel to Incheon International Airport with his family is a matter of simple math. A round-trip bus ride for two adults and one elementary school child costs 96,000 won ($66), or 18,000 won per adult and 12,000 won per child.

Driving, however, costs only 6,400 won in round-trip tolls and 9,000 won per day for parking. For Lee, it is significantly cheaper and easier to use a private car than to haul luggage on public transit.

This economic reality is pushing families away from buses and driving extreme congestion at the nation’s primary gateway, prompting Incheon International Airport to consider raising its parking fees for the first time in a decade.

Vehicles park densely along a ramp at the Incheon International Airport Terminal 2 short-term parking lot on Yeongjong Island, Feb. 22. Korea Times photo by Lee Hwan-jik

The Incheon International Airport Corporation announced Wednesday it plans to carefully review a fee hike in consultation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, alongside a potential expansion of parking facilities.

The move is in response to gridlocked lots caused by shifting traveler habits. The share of passengers driving private cars to the airport hit 45.2 percent last year, up 9.2 percentage points from 2019, while airport bus usage dropped below 30 percent from the 50 percent range.

Officials attribute this structural shift to a combination of frozen parking rates, slashed toll fees and escalating public transit costs. Incheon’s parking fees have remained unchanged since 2016 at 24,000 won per day for short-term parking and 9,000 won for long-term facilities.

These rates are significantly lower than global standards. Heathrow Airport in the U.K. charges 132,000 won for short-term daily parking — nearly six times the Incheon rate — and 48,000 won for long-term stays. Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok Airport charges 105,000 won, while France’s Charles de Gaulle Airport maintains rates three times higher than Incheon’s.

Simultaneously, the cost of driving to the airport has dropped significantly. Tolls for the Yeongjong Bridge upper road dropped to 3,200 won from 6,600 won for a one-way trip in 2023, while the Incheon Bridge toll fell to 2,000 won from 5,500 won last December. The newly opened Cheongna Haneul Bridge also charges just 2,000 won for a one-way toll.

AI-processed table compares parking systems at four international airports based on public data from November 2024 to October 2025.

Conversely, public transit has become more expensive and less frequent. Airport bus fares increased by 2,000 won in 2021 and 2022, pushing the cost of a one-way adult ticket to between 16,000 and 18,000 won. While total bus routes expanded from 113 in December 2019 to 123 as of last month, operators cut daily runs from 2,687 to 2,178, citing financial difficulties and vehicle upgrades.

Despite housing the nation’s largest parking facility with 46,851 spaces, the airport regularly exceeds 100 percent capacity during peak seasons. The corporation added 4,550 temporary spaces for this year’s Lunar New Year holiday travel rush, but still struggled to manage passenger traffic.

To combat shortages, the corporation plans to add 3,898 spaces to the Terminal 1 long-term facility by the second half of next year and 2,200 spaces to Terminal 2 by the second half of 2028. However, critics argue that a parking fee hike will not curb demand without a simultaneous reduction in bus fares.

“Because a parking fee increase leads to passenger burden, we are looking for a reasonable amount,” an official at the corporation said.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.