Full-scale operation of Cool Cargo Center at Incheon Airport

Starting from August 2021, the Cool Cargo Center (CCC) operates at Incheon International Airport. As a fresh cargo transshipment warehouse, the total area is 18,067m2 (15,554m2 for open storage, 1,872m2 for refrigerated/frozen cargo).

The proportion of transshipment cargo at Incheon International Airport stands for 41% of the total cargo turnover, and there is a large demand for transshipment of fresh cargoes such as bio pharmaceuticals, fresh flowers, and king crabs in the passenger valley. However, the lack of facilities dedicated to maintaining perishables made it difficult to attract transshipment cargoes. Until now, to transship fresh cargo, it had to be moved to the cargo terminal with refrigerated/frozen facilities, and stored, and then moved back 6km round-trip to the ramp and loaded onto passenger planes.

Due to the delay in this movement, it was difficult to attract cargo with a short transshipment time between planes and concerned about damage such as deterioration of freshness during the transportation process. In the future, when using Cool Cargo Center which is located in the ramp and equipped with a refrigerated/frozen warehouse and a transshipment workshop, transshipment time can be reduced by up to 90 minutes as there is no need to move the transshipment cargo.

This center is a facility in the ramp area where foreign cargoes are stored and is subject to the bonded area under the Customs Law. However, if it is designated as a patent bonded area, it is expected that it will be mandatory to report each case when transshipment cargoes go in and out, which may complicate the handling.

Incheon Customs designated this center as a CTA, Cargo Transit Area (temporary storage area) in the ramp for transshipment, rather than a patent bonded area, and supported to allow the omission of cumbersome procedure such as reporting incoming and outgoing. In addition, the existing CTA allowed only transshipment cargoes to be stored that are transferred within 24hours between passenger flights, but eased regulations by expanding the transshipment and storage period between passenger flights and freighters to 7days and allowing re-sorting cargoes.

As Korean Air official stated, “With the active support of the Customs, we will be able to reduce delays in transshipment cargo logistics and create an additional value of 54.7 billion won by attracting additional 55,000 tons of transshipment cargo per year such as temperature-sensitive fresh foods and bio pharmaceuticals.”