'Air city' planned around Seoul Incheon airport grounds
— -- Officials at Seoul's Incheon International are planning to transform airport grounds into an "air city," complete with apartments, shops, recreational facilities and businesses.
Incheon International, one of the world's largest airports, has enough land — about the size of Manhattan— to make the vision a reality. About 20,000 people, many of them airport employees, already live in the apartment buildings that sit on the land.
The airport recently broke ground on a fashion complex that will house designer studios, fashion show runways and a convention center. In partnership with MGM, the airport will also build a new amusement park.
With the airport overlooking the Yellow Sea, the project also envisions a marina for yacht and sailing enthusiasts. A medical center to capitalize on the rise in medical tourism is also planned. It will provide commonly sought treatments and services that don't require long hospitalization, such as Lasik operations, Asian herbal medicine and eyelid surgery (common among Asians who want their eyes to appear larger and rounder).
The facilities and the airport terminal will be connected by a new magnetic levitation train system. The air city project is scheduled for completion in 2020.
The new plans are part of the airport's goal to become a major international hub that draws more transfer passengers. The global recession has hit Asia hard, and the airport's passenger traffic fell 10% in the first seven months of this year compared with a year ago. The decline was offset by a 32% increase in transfer passengers, says Michelle Mi Sung Wee, a marketing official at Incheon.
The airport has been selected "Best Airport Worldwide" by Airports Council International four years in a row largely because of its services and amenities for transfer passengers. They can use free showers, soak in hot tubs in a Korean-style spa or nap at an in-terminal hotel that rents rooms in six-hour blocks.
•Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson
says it set a world record for monthly flights in July. Using Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, the world's busiest airport says it handled 88,408 flight operations — takeoffs and landings of all classes of aircraft — during the month. It also set a single-day record with 3,125 flight operations on July 13.
Route news
•Low-cost carriers JetBlue and Virgin America
will start flying from California to Fort Lauderdale later this year.
Beginning Nov. 18, Virgin America will begin two daily round-trip flights each from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale, its 10th destination. Connecting service to Fort Lauderdale will be available from its other West Coast airports, including Seattle; Orange County, Calif.; San Diego; and Las Vegas.
Virgin America CEO David Cush tells USA TODAY that the carrier likes the region's demographics and that it's cheaper to operate at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood than Miami International.
JetBlue, meanwhile, says it will fly one daily round-trip flight between San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale beginning Nov. 17, one day before Virgin America's service is scheduled to begin.
•Alaska Air
will add non-stop service between Portland, Ore., and Chicago O'Hare beginning Nov. 16. It will fly one daily round-trip flight using Boeing 737 jets.
•Beginning Dec. 17, US Airways
will add seasonal, non-stop service between its Phoenix hub and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The service, which runs through April 12, 2010, will be operated using Airbus A319 aircraft.