Review: Oneworld Lounge, Seoul Incheon (ICN)

In September 2025, I visited the Oneworld lounge at Seoul Incheon, one of Oneworld’s new-style, alliance-operated lounges. Oneworld has two of these lounges at the moment – one is at Incheon Airport, and the other is at Amsterdam Schiphol. I reviewed the Amsterdam Schiphol lounge a couple of months ago and was quite impressed, so I was excited to check out this lounge as well.

While the Oneworld lounge at Incheon Airport has some of the features that I liked about the Amsterdam lounge, this lounge was smaller and less well-designed, in my opinion. While both lounges feature the same whimsical furniture, the Amsterdam lounge felt airy and nicely sectioned out, whereas this lounge felt a bit more cramped and crowded. In a way, this felt like a first iteration of Oneworld’s new lounge design, whereas the Amsterdam lounge felt like a more refined version.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Access and Opening Hours

The Oneworld Lounge at Incheon Airport is open from 7:30 AM to 12:50 AM, just late enough to cover Qatar Airways’ departure out of the airport. There aren’t any early-morning Oneworld departures out of Seoul Incheon (the earliest is Cathay Pacific’s at 10 AM), so these opening hours cover all of the Oneworld flights out of Incheon Airport.

The lounge is open to first and business class passengers departing Seoul Incheon Airport same-day, as well as Oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members. Just to give you a sense of who that is, here are some airlines that depart out of Incheon Airport, where eligible passengers can use this lounge:

• American Airlines
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qatar Airways
• SriLankan Airlines

This lounge doesn’t feature a separate section for first class passengers or Oneworld Emerald members.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Location

The Oneworld Lounge at Seoul Incheon is located in the airport’s Terminal 1, where all of the Oneworld departures are. While Terminal 1 is getting old, there are a few architecturally impressive elements.

Incheon Airport Terminal 1

While immigration didn’t take too long, I found the signage at the airport to be very poor, especially when it came to lounges and other facilities. For example, I was let out near gates 1-11, and although gate 28 (where the lounge is located) wasn’t located far away at all, there was zero indication amongst airport signage that that’s where the Oneworld lounge was. I also failed to find a terminal map.

I had to search up the gate the lounge was near on Google, which pointed me to gate 28. From there I could see signage to the Korean Air lounge, as well as the Oneworld lounge.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Entrance

I went up a set of escalators, which brought me to the entrance of the Korean Air lounge and the Oneworld lounge. Korean Air mainly departs from Terminal 2, and in fact, only China Eastern and Vietnam Airlines are the only two SkyTeam airlines that use Incheon’s Terminal 1. So, realistically the Korean Air lounge at Terminal 1 is only used by passengers flying those two airlines.

I wasn’t flying either of them – I was flying Cathay Pacific, so I headed towards the Oneworld lounge, which had a snazzy lit-up entrance very similar to the one at Amsterdam Airport.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Entrance

I was scanned into the lounge by a friendly lounge attendant.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Seating and Atmosphere

The Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon is a small room that’s open-air to the rest of the terminal. The centerpiece of the lounge is an island bar, and there are a few tables and seating areas that loosely surround it.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon

Furniture consists of benches, various sorts of armchairs, stools, and bar tables, with the new signature Oneworld blue, maroon and gold colours. I’d say that the seating was comfortable enough, but didn’t feel particularly cozy.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon

While most of the lounge feels “freehand” and features curves and round tables, there are a few nooks and crannies that feature “straighter” seating, such as bench seating and square tables.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Seating

There were also a few high tables that were very close to the food spread.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Seating

Then there were a few chairs that faced the tarmac, with some round tables. These chairs had very straight high backs, and weren’t necessarily super comfortable for lounging.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Seating

By the far end of the lounge were some chaise longues, though they also felt a bit hard to sit on for extended periods of time. These faced a light fixture.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Seating

While this lounge doesn’t have a direct view of the apron, there’s floor to ceiling natural light at this lounge, and you can see the tarmac if you peer over the airport terminal. In our case we had a view of an Air China 737.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Tarmac Views

WiFi at this lounge was definitely usable, and easy to connect to.

The main seating area didn’t feel very big, and was probably around 50-60% full during my 2 PM visit. I imagine that the lounge would fill up significantly more closer to the evening, when many more Oneworld flights depart Incheon.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Food Spread

The Oneworld Lounge at Incheon features a small food spread, with a salad bar and a few hot options. While the hot options were of decent quality, I found the selection to be very limited, and wished there was a non-soupy Korean option. Instead, there was just mac and cheese, Japanese stir-fried noodles, and buffalo hot wings.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Food Spread

In terms of Korean options, there was Korean noodle soup and seaweed soup. There was also Japanese corn potage.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Food Spread

There was a larger selection of drinks at least, including various juices, beers, and soft drinks (including Milkis, which I enjoy).

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Drinks Spread

While the food spread at the Amsterdam lounge wasn’t particularly exciting, I found the food spread here to be extremely limited. Even the hot options that were there didn’t seem too fitting for the lounge – many Korean foods do quite well buffet-style (e.g. gimbap, bibimbap, tteokbokki), so I was surprised that none of that was available at this lounge’s food spread.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Bar

The Oneworld Lounge at Incheon features a bar, which features as the centerpiece of the lounge. The bar has a few snazzy seats with faux gold light fixtures as well.

 
Oneworld Lounge Incheon Bar

The bar features a cocktail list. The cocktails themselves are fairly basic, and mainly consist of one spirit with a mixer – though I assume the bartender has the ability to make other classic cocktails if you wish. Outside of this, there are also spirits and Cass beer on draft.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Bar Drinks Menu

I decided to have a creme de cassis with grapefruit juice, which was tasty enough, though not super exciting.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Drinks Menu

I wish that there was some usage of Korean spirits in the drinks menu, as the cocktail list felt quite one-dimensional for the most part. The only cocktail featuring more than one spirit was the “God Father”.

This lounge also doesn’t feature barista coffee. The coffee machine by the bar is quite good, though not quite the same.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Coffee Machine

This drinks selection is substantially weaker than the Oneworld Lounge Amsterdam’s offering, though better than nothing.

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Shower Rooms

In terms of other facilities, the Oneworld Lounge at Incheon Airport features two shower suites. I asked whether I could take a photo, though didn’t actually use the shower suite in the end.

The shower suites are quite modern and well-appointed, and feature toiletries from the Royal Orchard. I like that there’s a toilet in each of the shower suites, and they also feature a rainforest shower head.

Oneworld Lounge Incheon Shower Suites

Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon Service

As you’d expect in South Korea, everyone I interacted with was very courteous and helpful. The bartender was particularly friendly and eager to please on the day of my visit.

Conclusion: Oneworld Lounge Seoul Incheon

My impression of the Oneworld Lounge Incheon was that it was a decent place to spend some time, though didn’t offer quite the same level of finesse as offered by the alliance’s lounge in Amsterdam. The basics were there such as a relaxing ambience, good WiFi, and showers; however, the lounge was smaller, I was less fond of the layout, and the food and drinks options were disappointing.

Incheon Airport’s lounges are generally uninspiring – Korean Air’s lounges at the airport are particularly weak. I’ve been to some great alliance-wide lounges, such as Star Alliance’s lounge in Rome. Unfortunately I would say that this lounge is of the former caliber, and wouldn’t spend more time here than necessary.