Troopers

We landed 3pm last Thursday. We were late to our appt at T1 west after getting our WiFi puck and T-card. There’s two lines, one for appts and another for walk-ins. We didn’t have to wait to check in, pay and take test. There was a short line for walk-ins.

loganre17

Wishful thinking - Is there any talk of removing the 3 day PCR test at all?

mikesaidyes

None. The Korean government officials flat out have publicly said that they consider the PCR test on arrival a very effective measure of monitoring, so they're not going not to remove it any time soon.

mikesaidyes

Based on the facts of the current government laws. The official rules state that only Korean infections for Korean citizens and long term foreign residents with residence card - and within 40 days.

Now, as you said, some local health departments do whatever the F they want. Some throw you in a government facility. Some will say "ok well you got COVID recently, so actually we don't care." But that varies wildly, and you should not go into Korea expecting that they will accept your form and let you avoid staying home or going to a facility. These local health office rules aren't published, so we can't say which one you'll get.

loganre17

Thanks. Super annoying. I'm very paranoid about a positive. Think I'll do Thailand now, and Tokyo in December

holycow4

I scrolled through this forum but did not see a definitive answer. I have a similar situation in which I'm flying SFO-NRT-ICN. Do you need to take a PCR test 48 hours prior to the SFO-NRT flight or prior to the NRT-ICN flight? Thx all for your help!

Andrew Kim

48 hours before the SFO-NRT flight; the start of your journey. And they want you to think in terms of days (2), not hours, which allows for a more liberal interpretation of 48 hours that benefits the traveler.

So say a first flight is scheduled to depart at 23:59 on a Wednesday. The traveler can get their test as early as 00:00 Monday (bad example as no clinics will be open at that time, but my point stands) and still have those 71+ hours count as "2 days ago."

How much time passes while you were en route to Korea is irrelevant as long as you continually remain a transit passenger and do not enter any country where you make connections.

I think this system makes things equal for both the flyer who lives in LA and gets to take a direct flight to Seoul, and another who might have to go from Portland to Seattle to Narita to Seoul.

holycow4

Thanks for the excellent explanation - saved me from embarking on some complicated time zone calculations to figure out the exact 48 hour mark!

seigex

Do you know if they scrutinize tickets when looking at timing? I'm going to be on 3 separate tickets to get to ICN, first a repo flight on AA, then a JAL flight to NRT, then I will have to check in (assuming I can't do OLCI with Korean Air) at the transfer desk at NRT. Will they use 2 hours from my original flight even though it's on a separate ticket or will it have to be 2 days from boarding the KE flight at NRT?

invalyd

Things aren't looking good for the HND-GMP route starting up again. All flights through 6/30 cancelled and now JL has started to pull inventory from July.

BRITINJAPAN4

OH ! I have a GMP HND on NH for July 2nd !

jjangoo

This raises something I've been wondering about. Why haven't JL/NH been operating feeder flights out of ICN to NRT/HND? Is it because of potential IRROPS stranding non-Japanese passengers in Tokyo? So annoying trying to book connecting flights for JL/NH these days.

mikesaidyes

JL and NH have never actually flown to Incheon airport, that's why. They only served GMP-HND for business travelers. Not even KIX.

jjangoo

Can't speak for NH but JL has most definitely operated the ICN-NRT route.

invalyd

The Japanese government has yet to lift the rule that all flights originating from China and Korea must land at NRT, so I'd imagine that is also playing a part.