When to use the hub lounge in Seoul Incheon Airport?
July 25, 2011 5:33 PM Subscribe
I want to use the hub lounge in Seoul Incheon Airport, South Korea. Do I use it before or after immigration? What process should I follow?
This will be after a long haul flight, and prior to taking a domestic flight to my destination. I've been told that I need to clear immigration at Seoul, collect my luggage, then check in for my domestic flight separately. As the domestic flight leaves 7 hours later, I'd like to use the hub lounge facilities for sleeping, eating and using the wifi. I'm 100% not interested in leaving the airport.
It's my understanding that you can only access the (paid) hub lounge after security, i.e. airside. But since I won't be able to immediately check in for my internal flight, I figure that it would make sense to use the hub lounge before clearing immigration.
Is this how using the hub lounge works? What do I do with my luggage? Can I pick it up later, or can I pick it up without clearing immigration? Information on this is unclear to me on the airport website, probably not helped by this being the first time I have to wait this long between flights. If you can walk me through the process, even better!
This will be after a long haul flight, and prior to taking a domestic flight to my destination. I've been told that I need to clear immigration at Seoul, collect my luggage, then check in for my domestic flight separately. As the domestic flight leaves 7 hours later, I'd like to use the hub lounge facilities for sleeping, eating and using the wifi. I'm 100% not interested in leaving the airport.
It's my understanding that you can only access the (paid) hub lounge after security, i.e. airside. But since I won't be able to immediately check in for my internal flight, I figure that it would make sense to use the hub lounge before clearing immigration.
Is this how using the hub lounge works? What do I do with my luggage? Can I pick it up later, or can I pick it up without clearing immigration? Information on this is unclear to me on the airport website, probably not helped by this being the first time I have to wait this long between flights. If you can walk me through the process, even better!
Response by poster: The domestic flight (Korean Air) most definitely does fly out of Incheon too. I'm not really sure why my instructions are to clear immigration at Seoul and check-in for the domestic flight separately, but the instructions have been used by a lot of people so I figure there must be some reason behind doing things this way. Possibly to avoid being delayed in immigration at the final airport, when it's better to use some of the transit time in Seoul for this. I'll see what happens.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:34 AM on July 26, 2011
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 1:34 AM on July 26, 2011
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That said, I'm pretty sure you'll go through customs like normal and then you'll be in the hub area. You can then use the facilities for a while before going to the front of the airport.
Not sure why you have to check-in twice. I've never heard of that and I've been through Incheon a lot.
Also, won't your luggage get moved to the domestic flight automatically? It doesn't make sense that you'd have to re-check it.
So I'm pretty certain using the facilities won't be a problem, but double-check your domestic flight information.
posted by bardic at 10:46 PM on July 25, 2011