Gimpo airport opening hours: a curfew, not a closing time

Gimpo airport has no closing time in the sense a shop has one. It has a flight curfew: no take-off or landing from 11 pm to 6 am Korea time. The curfew is what an English search for opening hours is really asking about, and it decides what happens to a flight that runs late.

Gimpo airport opening hours: the official answer

Korea’s official aeronautical publication, the AIP, gives these hours for Gimpo in the edition effective 30 September 2026. The AIP writes times in UTC; Korea is UTC plus nine hours.

HO is the aviation code for a service available to meet operational requirements, so customs and immigration at Gimpo are staffed for the flights that are scheduled rather than to a posted clock. The AIP names the reason for the restriction as noise abatement.

On a real timetable, the day is shorter than the curfew allows. Asiana’s winter schedule for Japan, running from 25 October 2026, has its earliest Gimpo departure at 07:55, to Osaka Kansai, and its latest Gimpo arrival at 22:35, from Tokyo Haneda. Asiana says the schedule can change without notice.

What happens to a flight that misses Gimpo’s 11 pm curfew?

A flight that cannot land at Gimpo by 11 pm is diverted, and in the case on record it went to Incheon. In July 2026, Asiana flight OZ8994 from Jeju to Gimpo, held up by wind shear at Jeju, was sent to Incheon. Money Today quoted Asiana’s text message to passengers, which cited Gimpo’s take-off and landing ban from 11 pm to 6 am and promised a chartered bus to the Gimpo domestic terminal. Two flights were diverted that day.

An extension is not the airline’s call. One passenger told the paper the limit had been stretched for late flights in similar cases before. A Korea Airports Corporation official told Money Today that when a Jeju departure is delayed by wind shear or similar, whether to extend Gimpo’s limit is decided by related agencies such as the Jeju regional aviation office, and that this case was not judged to need an exception of the kind made for heavy snow or prolonged cancellations.

Gimpo accounts for almost every curfew diversion in Korea. Incheon Ilbo, reading transport ministry data for 2014 to September 2024, found curfews at four of Korea’s 15 airports: Gimpo, Gimhae, Daegu and Gwangju. Of the 315 diversions counted in that curfew analysis, 300 were Gimpo flights. They carried 46,121 passengers, against 2,219 at the other airports. Gimpo also accounted for 419 of the 831 curfew cancellations.

Incheon is not one of the four curfew airports. Asiana’s winter 2026 Japan timetable lands OZ177 from Haneda at Incheon at 04:10, deep inside the hours Gimpo is closed to flights. If your evening flight into Gimpo is delayed, have the Incheon to Gimpo transfer or the Incheon airport to Seoul routes open on your phone before you board.

Is Gimpo airport open 24 hours?

For flights, Gimpo is not open 24 hours. Take-off and landing stop from 11 pm to 6 am, with exceptions the AIP lists in its noise abatement section:

1. An aircraft in an emergency.
2. An aircraft carrying a patient who needs emergency medical help.
3. An aircraft evacuating from a typhoon or heavy snow.
4. Search and rescue flights.
5. Flights the authorities designate for national purposes.

The AIP keeps training flights out longer: no training take-off between 0900 and 2100 UTC, which is 6 pm to 6 am in Korea, and no training landing between 1100 and 2100 UTC, which is 8 pm to 6 am.

The terminal building is a separate question, and no official source read for this page answers it. The AIP gives hours for the operator and for services, not for the doors. So treat Gimpo as a place to leave before the last train rather than a place to spend the night. The last airport railway departures from Gimpo towards Seoul, read off the operator’s timetable, are on the Gimpo airport to Seoul page.

What time does Gimpo International Airport open in the morning?

Gimpo International Airport opens to flights at 6 am Korea time, written as 2100 UTC in the AIP. Gimpo’s closing hour is where English answers slip. One web search answer seen on 7 October 2026 gave the hours as 6 am to 10 pm, an hour short at night. The AIP restriction starts at 1400 UTC, and 1400 UTC is 11 pm in Korea, which is also the hour Asiana gave in its July 2026 text message to the passengers it diverted to Incheon.

When to arrive at Gimpo airport

Arrive by the check-in deadline printed on your own booking. This page did not read any airline’s Gimpo check-in deadline, so it gives no number. The curfew matters more to a flight into Gimpo than to one out of it: no scheduled departure on Asiana’s Japan timetable leaves before 07:55, and the risk of a diversion sits with evening arrivals. Which Gimpo lounges a pass, a ticket or a booking gets you into is on the Gimpo airport lounge page.

If you are choosing between Seoul’s two airports for a late arrival, the comparison of last trains and fares is on the Gimpo vs Incheon page, and the short list of cities Gimpo flies to abroad is on the Gimpo international flights page.

What is not checked here

The hours and exceptions come from the Gimpo section of Korea’s AIP, in the AIRAC edition effective 30 September 2026, read on 7 October 2026. The diversion case comes from Money Today, and the counts from Incheon Ilbo’s reading of transport ministry data, not from the data itself.

Whether the terminal building, shops or arrival hall stay open overnight was not found on any official source. No airline’s check-in opening time or deadline at Gimpo was read. Only Asiana’s Japan routes were checked for first and last flights, with each flight’s direction read from the column it sits in on Asiana’s table; Korean Air, Peach, T’way and the domestic schedules may start earlier or end later. The 10 pm figure is one search answer seen on one day and may have changed.

If the curfew changes, or you find an official page that gives Gimpo’s terminal hours, tell me and this page will say so with a date.