A breakdown in the baggage handling system during the New Year's rush at Incheon International Airport on Sunday created a misery for passengers until Monday and left many without their belongings.

About 160 flights were delayed for up to five hours due to the breakdown of the system, and some aircraft simply took off without passengers' luggage. Hundreds of passengers were still unable to claim their baggage by Monday afternoon.

"Aircraft took off without hundreds or thousands of pieces of baggage per airline," an airline staffer said.

The Korea Airports Corporation has yet to tally the exact number.

Passengers were naturally up in arms, some stuck inside their planes for up to two hours after they had landed. A passenger who had to wait three hours before the aircraft took off said neither the airport corporation nor the airline warned passengers beforehand.

The Airport Operators Committee, a group of 67 airlines at Incheon Airport, is considering suing for damages.

◆ Mysterious Cause

An Airports Corporation spokesman said the airport saw a record daily number of some 176,400 passengers on Sunday, and that led to some glitches in one or two of the 88-km long conveyor belt lines. "The glitches seemed to cause the entire baggage handling system to break down."

"A momentary congestion appears to have led to the entire baggage handling system becoming overburdened," an official with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said.

But experts point out that the overload was only a matter of time. The airport is designed for up to 44 million passengers per year but last year it was used by 49.2 million.

Another airline staffer said, "It's true that the day saw the largest number of passengers since the opening of the airport, but the airport corporation should have planned for that given that Sunday was the last day of holidays."

Incheon Airport can handle 12,600 pieces of baggage per hour and could have prevented the disaster if it had dispersed baggage properly and deployed emergency personnel, experts say.

Incheon Airport is known as one of the world's best airports and normally highly evaluated for its service quality including baggage claim. But industry insiders worry that the latest blunder would harm its image and reputation.

◆ Airport Expansion

Authorities have promised that the airport will be able to serve passengers better with the construction of a second terminal, which is slated for completion in 2017 with a budget of about W5 trillion (US$1=W1,190).

But what is to happen until then? On present form a similar debacle could happen any time. "The expansion should have started much earlier given that the terminal was expected to exceed capacity in 2015," an aviation expert said.

Others point out that staff discipline at the airport has become lax because corporation presidents have been coming and going through the revolving doors.

It has had six presidents for some 15 years since its establishment in 1999. Lee Chae-wook, the fourth president, served the longest time of four years and four months but suddenly resigned in 2013 right after the terminal expansion was decided.

His successor Chung Chang-soo lasted for less than a year and left to run for a mayoral election in 2014. After a seven-month management vacuum, Park Wan-su was appointed in October 2014 but he, too, quit recently to run in the upcoming general election.

They appear to have used the job as a springboard into politics, and the frequent replacements have caused lax discipline among staff.