page_title: Gimpo International Airport
section_title: International era
hierarchical_section_title: Gimpo International Airport / History / International era
caption_attribution_description: English: Gimpo International Airport shown on an OpenStreetMap. Copied from the Marble program.
context_page_description: Gimpo International Airport, commonly known as Gimpo Airport, is located in the far western end of Seoul, some 15 km west of the Central District of Seoul. Gimpo was the main international airport for Seoul and South Korea before being replaced by Incheon International Airport in 2001. It now functions as Seoul's secondary airport. In 2015, 23,163,778 passengers used the airport, making it the third largest airport in Korea, as it has been surpassed by Jeju International Airport.
  The airport is located south of the Han River in western Seoul. The name "Gimpo" comes from the nearby city of Gimpo, of which the airport used to be a part.
  On 29 November 2003, scheduled services between Gimpo and Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan resumed. Services to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport resumed on 28 October 2007. Services to Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan started on 26 October 2008. Services to Beijing Capital International Airport started on 1 July 2011. Services to Taipei Songshan Airport started on 30 April 2012.
context_section_description: In 1958, the airport was redesignated as the Gimpo international airport of Seoul by a presidential decree, completely replacing the existing Yeouido Airport.
  Following the construction of Gimpo, Yeouido Airport was totally demolished. It soon became the main airport of Seoul and South Korea in general. In 1971, a new combined domestic and international terminal was opened. However, following the opening of Terminal 1 in 1977, the original terminal was converted to domestic flights only. Later, Terminal 2 was opened due to the Olympic Games.
  However, Gimpo began to take more flights than it is capable of handling. Since 1980, Gimpo met a lot of problems, due to its lack of space to expand. A major problem is that it has a curfew, which means arrivals and departures are strictly prohibited during the night.
  Due to these problems, the South Korean government decided to build a new airport. It was actually planned in Cheongju, 124 kilometres away from Seoul, but it was strongly opposed by Seoul and Gyeonggi Province citizens due to its inconvenience (it would be farther away than Viracopos Airport in Campinas, Brazil, which is approximately 80 kilometres away from the city of São Paulo). Finally, the new site was decided to be nearby Yeongjong Island, a part of Incheon. This was later known as Incheon International Airport. All international flights were moved to Incheon when it opened in 2001.
caption: Map of the airport circa 2014, with the rail station seen along the top.
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