4,000 actors test Incheon Airport’s Terminal 2

The exterior of Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 2 on Thursday. The new terminal will open in January. [YONHAP]

The government tested the new terminal at Incheon International Airport on Thursday, using actors, real aircraft and a lot of luggage to check if construction will be complete in time for the PyeongChang Olympics in February next year.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted the test run of the terminal, whose eight-year-construction is 99.3 percent complete, with the goal of finishing work in January so that it can be ready to receive foreign visitors for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics.

The government used 4,000 actors pretending to be passengers, 8,000 pieces of luggage and two jets to test the long-awaited terminal’s readiness to greet travelers in January.

During the test run, the passengers went through ticketing, boarding, security screening and customs service processes while the authorities checked the luggage-handling capacity and other management-related activity.

The second terminal construction began in 2009 and 4.9 trillion won ($4.32 billion) has been spent on it.

“As the preparation [for the second terminal opening] has been smooth, we expect it to be open before the PyeongChang Games,” said Land Minister Kim Hyun-mi, “With the new terminal, we will turn Incheon airport into the world’s top-class airport.”

The construction was initially scheduled to be complete by the end of this year but was delayed. There was speculation that the new terminal could be launched after the PyeongChang games. But as the transport minister indicated Thursday, it is expected to be ready for passengers before the Olympics, which begin on Feb. 9 and last 17 days.

The ministry expects that with the addition of the new terminal, Incheon International Airport’s annual passenger-handling capacity of 58 million people, which was ranked seventh among major international airports last year, will increase by up to 18 million people a year, pushing the airport into the top five in the world.

BY KANG JIN-KYU [kang.jinkyu@joongang.co.kr]