Aiming to be a hub for transportation in Northeast Asia, Incheon International Airport will officially welcome planes from around the world Thursday.

Incheon will take over Kimpo's role as the nation's main international airport when an Asiana flight from Bangkok touches down at 5 a.m. and a Korean Air (KAL) flight bound for Manila takes off three and a half hours later.

The new international airport held an inauguration ceremony last Thursday to help launch what has taken $5.95 billion dollars and eight years and four months to create.

The new international airport has a passenger terminal which can handle 27 million passengers annually and 8,400 pieces of luggage per hour.

A separate cargo terminal can process 1.7 million tons of cargo per year, and the two 4 kilometer-long runways can accommodate 170,000 flights annually.

After the first-stage opening, the new international airport will continue to expand in phases until 2020, giving it the capability of becoming the world's busiest terminal with 100 million passengers and 530,000 flights a year.

In the meantime, Kimpo International Airport is scheduled to end its 40 year's of international service Wednesday.