Incheon Airport scraps 'celebrity' security lanes amid favoritism dispute

Officials at Incheon Airport conduct a crowd management drill at Terminal 2 of the airport on Sept. 30. (Yonhap)

Incheon International Airport Corporation said Sunday it is retracting a much-disputed plan to provide designated security lanes for celebrities in order to prevent overcrowding by onlookers, after a backlash from the general public and lawmakers against preferential treatment for famous people.

Officials at South Korea's main gateway said the airport will not be implementing the plan to permit celebrities to use security lanes such as those for flight crews, diplomats and disabled passengers, which was scheduled to begin Monday.

"We will introduce other plans to ensure that overcrowding (at security) and other issues such as passenger safety will not occur," the company said in a press release.

Last week, the airport's operators announced that famous people would be able to apply to use the flight crew lanes in a bid to prevent the kind of crowding by onlookers that in recent months led to passenger inconvenience and safety issues. One such incident caused controversy when actor Byeon Woo-seok used the airport and members of his security team conducted unauthorized passport checks and blocked off lanes to other passengers.

But the airport's new plan backfired when several members of the general public and some lawmakers took issue with preferential treatment for famous people and a lack of clear criteria for who could use the set-aside security lanes.

Most of the recipients of documentation from the airport about the new plan were major entertainment agencies, according to Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea speaking in a parliamentary audit session held by the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)