Kim Kyung-wook, former vice land minister, has been nominated as president and CEO of the state-run Incheon International Airport Corp. to fill in the vacuum caused by the predecessor’s dismissal.

The airport operator held a shareholders‘ meeting virtually on Thursday and agreed to nominate Kim as the sole candidate for the ninth president and CEO post, officials said Friday.

The top post has remained vacant since Koo Bon-hwan was dismissed in September for neglecting his supervisory duties during typhoons and making false reports to the National Assembly and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The corporation put up a recruiting notice for the post in November but had trouble finding the right person as only three applied in the initial phase and two of them dropped out due to lack of documentation.

It had to conduct an additional recruitment to receive 15 more applications, of which it singled out three top-tier candidates. After the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s personnel verification process in December, Kim was chosen as the final man.

In order to officially take office as the state-run corporation’s chief, Kim requires the recommendation of Land Minister Byeon Chang-heum and the approval of President Moon Jae-in.

Awaiting the incoming IIAC head are a number of pending issues, starting with the drastic reduction of airport passengers amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the stalled auction for duty-free shop operators in Terminal 1. Another dilemma is the internal brawl over the mass status change of irregular workers to regular ones last year, which triggered backlash from young jobseekers and staff who saw it as an unfair move.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)