Originally Posted by
suwillow
My experience is that it would depend on the staff on the counter and how busy they are at the time when you try to check in. If the counter is really busy, they could ask you to come a little bit later for checkin.
That makes no sense as the OZ check-in counters at ICN aren't flight-specific but open for all OZ flights. If you're too early to have a gate assigned for your flight, they'll tell you to check the boards airside to find the gate. Are you sure you flew OZ out of ICN?
As a point of reference, I check-in early at OZ counters in ICN 1 out of 4 or 5 flights. And out of 100+ flights on OZ out of ICN, never had issues checking in early, nor heard of issues from colleagues or friends.