Gimpo airport, located just west of Seoul, will open dedicated facilities for private and chartered planes next month, South Korea's airport authority said Friday.
The Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center will open at Gimpo International Airport in mid-June with an exclusive terminal and a hangar, according to the Korea Airports Corp.
The terminal will have customs, immigration and quarantine facilities, as well as VIP rooms. The new aircraft hangar will be able to accommodate four planes at once, according to the airport operator.
There were some 152,000 private planes registered worldwide as of 2013. In South Korea, five companies operate some 10 planes.
The number of private flights that arrive or leave from Gimpo airport, which serves the capital city, as well the port city of Incheon and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, has been steadily increasing from 179 in 2005 to 931 in 2010 and 1,168 last year.
Many world-class celebrities and public figures, such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, have used private jets when they visited South Korea.
"(The new facilities) will contribute to the aviation industry and the country's economy by attracting major foreign visitors and those who own business planes," an official said. "Every domestic and foreign passenger taking business planes can use the facilities." (Yonhap)
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