Just did a transfer inbound from Japan enroute to LAX - and I was unhappily reminded of why I do not like transferring here. The cheap OZ J fare barely makes the transfer bearable.
1. no premium line for transfer security - everyone goes into the same massive line, first class, business class, elites and the hoi polloi. There is no excuse for this especially in the Asiana dominated terminal.
2. transfer security is highly inefficient - the last time I went through here about 12 years ago, they got hung up on a small baggie of coins in my backpack. Today, here we go again. Same issue, the coins, but everything else in bag became an endless fascination with the security agent taking 75% of the contents out to spread into other bins and sending it through 3 times. I'm not sure if their x-ray equipment is so old and useless it can't really see anything with clarity, or the staff are not properly trained to understand what is on the screen. I've never had this issue at any other airport in the world. On top of that, they dropped the dispensing cap for my over the counter medicine after not computing that not all medication needs a written prescription - so they let it through, but after the cap rolled around the floor, I told them to throw it out, I'm not going to use it again anyway
3. It's freakin' hot in there - no ventilation except fans for the staff. The passengers can all dissolve into a hot sweaty mess for all they care
4. There is some eye candy among the staff, but that loses its allure pretty quickly when they're dumping stuff into multiple trays to look at 10 times because they've never seen pocket change or a house key before
Next time we will really need to weigh the hassle of a ICN transfer vs the cost of a OZ ticket - which won't be much of a factor after the merger anyway.
Hopefully my checked bag didn't go through some looney tune screening process because it's literally full of laundry detergent pods, body wash and groceries from Japan.