President Koo Bon-hwan of Incheon International Airport Corp. (Photo: IIAC)

The Korean National Railroad was a government enterprise, spin off from the Ministry of Transportation, in September 1963. It had suffered chronic losses caused by lax management, promoting a public call to transform it into a corporation of innovation.

Repeated attempts to reinvent the predecessor of Korea National Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) ended up in failure, but the Korean National Railroad was restructured into KORAIL in 2000.

Koo Bon-hwan was the architect of the successful restructuring the Korean railroad industry. At that time, he served as head of a restructuring team for three years from June 2000.

Koo had been with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) for 28 years after he passed the 33rd higher administrative service examination. He held positions such as director in charge of international aviation, head of the Seoul District Aviation Office, director-general in charge of aviation policy and deputy minister of aviation policy.

He was credited with implementing major policies as Korea’s becoming a member of the board of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), expanding flight routes through aviation talks and revamping traffic rights, and nurturing of new growth engines such as the drone industry, contributing to the development of the Korean aviation industry.

He had been praised for successfully carrying out major projects, such as the opening of the 2nd terminal of Incheon International Airport, the establishment of the master plan for the 4th construction plan of the airport, and changing non-regular employees of the airport into regular staff members while service as director-general in charge of aviation policy and deputy minister in charge of aviation policy.

Koo, celebrating his 100th day as president of Incheon International Airport Corp. (IIAC) on July 24, is at the vanguard of accomplishing another mission. That mission is to make Incheon an unmatched global airport.

He made the remarks at his inauguration ceremony as the eighth IIAC president at the airport on April 16. He revealed a plan to develop Incheon International Airport into a G3 airport contributing to aviation, tourism, logistics and convergence by building an “economic sphere” surrounding Incheon International Airport that also encapsulates all of Yeongjong Island, Songdo and Gangwha Island.

President Koo revealed as management tasks the stable operation of the airport and innovative growth, securing new growth centers through the creation of the Incheon International Airport Economic Sphere; creating a new industry ecosystem of shared growth among aviation industries; and expanding human-oriented management and social values.

He unveiled a plan to develop Incheon International Airport into a mega hub, attracting more than 100 million passengers annually. President Koo said, “with the recent globalization of economic activities and high-tech oriented industrial restructuring, the airport industry is changing into an unmatched airport.”

With the implementation of the fourth phase construction of Incheon International Airport, he said his corporation will secure enough infrastructure to attract more than 100 million passengers annually by 2023 and transform the airport into one unmatched by its rivals by building the airport as Korea’s representative economic sphere.

Of late, the airport industry’s paradigm is shifting from a G1 airport focusing on passengers and cargo into a G3 one of global trade and production center, as well as aviation, tourism, logistics, and smart convergence economic sphere. That’s beyond a G2 airport with hotels, resorts and logistics areas.

With the goal of rising to a G3 airport, an Incheon International Airport economic sphere covering neighborhood areas such as Yeongjong Island, Songdo and Gangwha Island will be built into Korea’s representative economic center that will serve as a business hub, a high-tech industry hub, aviation support hub and a logistics/tourism hub, he said. The task is one of mega projects IIAC is implementing to help Incheon International Airport make another quantum jump.