I like the ICN airport, but there's one negative about ICN that I've never seen mentioned before.

ICN is about 6 km or 6 miles or so from the border with North Korea. And the one time I flew out of there, we took off on a bearing heading almost directly for the border. Kim Jong Il was being especially belligerent at the time, so it was a little unnerving watching the flight map display as our plane inched closer and closer to the line before turning west, south, and then east to head for San Francisco.

I couldn't stop thinking about those North Korean anti-aircraft gunners on the other side of that line, who watch civilian aircraft coming at them several times an hour, suspecting that any air attack that might come could very well include radar signatures disguised as civilian flights, and they have about 30 seconds reaction time.

A disputed "border incursion" resulting in a shoot-down would sure make a convenient excuse for an unstable, desperate tyrant who wanted to provoke a crisis.