Incheon extends night operations

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All four duty-free retailers at the Seoul airport will extend their opening hours to service night flight passengers

Seoul Incheon International airport's duty-free shops are to extend their opening hours to accommodate more night flights following the country's move from a six-day to a five-day week. The airport authority is expecting Koreans to take advantage of the extended weekend by taking more short breaks abroad and has asked retailers to respond by staying open longer.

"We have four duty-free retailers here - Lotte, KNTO, AK and DFS - with several locations," a spokeswoman for the commercial department of the Incheon International Airport Corporation told TRW. "We will open shops on an "at least one shop per retailer" policy during the night. AK and KNTO are planning to open their shops all night, while Lotte and DFS will open their shops until the last departing flight."

She added that Lotte will start opening at night on August 23 and DFS on September 1. Food & beverage outlets, transit lounges and currency exchanges will also have extended hours of operation.

To boost the new services, the authority is offering discounted landing charges to flights running between 11pm and 5.30am for more than a month. The airport will also circulate leaflets containing information on night travel to passengers and conduct joint marketing with travel agencies and airlines.

When Incheon opened in 2001, only one airline operated a night flight. Now, four airlines including All Nippon Airways and Malaysia Airlines have night flights. The number of chartered flights to Japan and southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines is also set to increase for those travelling from Friday evening to early Monday morning.