Gimhae International Airport, located in Daejeo 2-dong, Gangseo-gu, Busan, opened its first Suyeong airfield in August 1958 and was promoted to Busan International Airport in September 1963. In August 1976, the airport was renamed Gimhae International Airport to its current location for the expansion of airport facilities. Gimhae International Airport has continued to develop with the local community, attracting 10 million passengers a year, and gradually expanding travel facilities for the disabled.
It is a military-civilian international airport and is home to the 5th Airborne Air Force. Air Busan, a subsidiary of Asiana Airlines, will use it as a hub airport.
It is Korea's fourth-largest airport after Incheon, Jeju, and Gimpo by the number of passengers and the second largest number of international passengers after Incheon International Airport, and the number of international passengers (including passengers on the Gimhae-Incheon route), which is exclusively for international flights, surpassed 10 million in 2018.
However, due to poor facilities and mountainous terrain around the airport, the takeoff and landing of large airplanes and the operation of long-distance flights are limited, so international flights mainly operate East Asian and Southeast Asian routes such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, China, Thailand, and the Philippines.
The passenger terminal can handle 19 million passengers per year (12.69 million domestic and 6.31 million international).
One runway with a length of 3,200 m× widths of 60 m and one runway with a length of 2,743 m 46 width of 46 m are installed parallel to each other, and the runway has an annual aircraft handling capacity of 118,000 times (based on civil aviation).
Twenty-six Airbus A300-600R aircraft can be cycled at the same time on a 382,594 m2 mooring site.
Navigation Safety Facility: Instrument Landing Facility (ILS), Radio Signage (TVOR/DME), Air Illumination, RVR (Rural Automatic Measuring Device)
Airport Rating: CAT-II (Landable Runway Visibility Range 300-550 m)
In 2013, the number of passengers (including passengers on the Gimhae-Incheon route), which is dedicated to international transfers, exceeded the annual passenger handling capacity of the international passenger terminal (4.64 million). As a result, the airport has increased its passenger handling capacity to 6.31 million people a year in July 2017 by expanding the international passenger terminal by 34 percent to the left (south) and installing three more boarding bridges, two baggage belts, immigration rooms, and airline counters since 2013, but the number of international passengers at Gimhae International Airport has already increased much faster than expected [8][9] to 6.31 million in 2015, with 9 million people already reaching 9 million in 2016.
The new airport in the southeastern part of the country was promoted twice due to poor facilities and operating conditions, but all of them were deemed to be economically uneconomical and decided to expand Gimhae International Airport in 2016.
On August 1, 2019, the Korea Airports Corporation spent 41.8 billion won to build a 6.2-million-liter hydrant refueling facility at Gimhae International Airport, which resolved the refueling problem to some extent, thereby improving the operating conditions of medium-sized photovoltaic vehicles such as the A350 and B787.
Due to the characteristics of military airports and noise damage from nearby residents due to aircraft operations, all kinds of flights are prohibited from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. the following day for seven hours. Previously, operations were restricted for nine hours from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., but due to a lack of available flights, Busan Metropolitan City reduced the time limit by two hours from October 27, 2008, in consultation with residents' representatives.
Currently, most international flights at Gimhae International Airport have been suspended due to the COVID-19.