Ok.  You’ve just landed at Incheon International Airport on a long haul flight from home by way of a cramped economy seat with a baby screaming at the top of his lungs, egged on by his new age femi-dad.  Welcome to my world.

I think that flying can be fun and adventurous especially when you’re with friends to chat up all that downtime: the x-ray line, the check-in line, duty free line, the boarding gate line, and the flight itself.

But the worst of the downtime can be felt at the very end of your trip at the Immigration lines.  It’s a throng of people.   Separated by nationality, it looks more like this.  Korean nationals have moderate lines.  The crew receives, almost as a reward for dealing with us for ten hours, a first class line for “Diplomats and flight crews” to sail through.  And then there’s the cow herd of foreigners, which resembles a hodgepodge of French-Korean speaking caucasian dads and their kids, and enough Africans, Chinese, South Asians, Korean-Americans, Australians, and Canadians to start your own NGO at the UN.

Here’s the ONE tip that will save you up to 30 minutes or more when you find yourself in this mess! 

Most passengers, immediately after deboarding the plane, will scuttle over to the Immigration lines.  What is not commonly known or recognized is that the lines they queue on are not the lines you have to be on.  Keep walking.  The bottleneck of passengers are actually stopping at the leftmost edge of a very long corridor of immigration lines which spans the length of the airport. 

If you keep walking past the crowd, as though in an infinite Matrix, the lines will reappear empty of anyone.  Do this casually, and don’t look back.  About a hundred people will see you doing this and follow you.  You will be at the head of the class on this one. 

As for baggage claim, my only observation is that if your bag goes in last it comes out first.  But you already knew that.

– Travelistic loves her new job

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