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10 Comments

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  tokyotom at 05:23 AM JST - 20th November

  wasnt' he also proposing to make osaka a gambling mecca? desperate times for the kansai!

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  Osakadaz at 08:48 AM JST - 20th November

  I live near Itami and there is a huge amount of flights.I can't see that amount of domestic flights working from Kansai instead safely.Kobe airport will get the runoff.Oh, and Kansai airport is slowly sinking.The govt is already in trouble for Rinku town which was supposed to be a banking hub but failed.Hashimoto has his nose too far up his own butt.Most Osakans do not want to have to travel to Kansai Airport just to fly domestically.This English-language hub sounds like baloney,sorry.

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  stirfry at 04:59 PM JST - 20th November

  given the fact that he's probably 80, he won't be alive in 2035

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  cleo at 05:15 PM JST - 20th November

  stirfry - Toru Hashimoto is 40, and seriously hot. In 2035 he'll be 66.

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  Sarge at 05:27 PM JST - 20th November

  I think Hashimoto's plan is brilliant. And I suppose he's hot for a governor, tee hee!

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  bobbafett at 07:49 PM JST - 20th November

  I like Hashimoto but he should turn his academic compound into a reclusive christian cult and have them all tithe Osaka out of this depression.

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  Cos at 08:09 PM JST - 20th November

  In 2035 ? Already ? That was meant to be scrapped in 1995. Here planes from Itami make an awful noise (already the 3rd that passes since I started writing that message, I'll hear 20 or 30 in the next hour). And we breath their fumes. It's a nuisance even for the 90% of Osaka inhabitants that never fly from Itami. We paid so much over the years to get rid of old Itami, to get the Shinkansen and Kansai Airport. They fooled us.

  Osakans do not want to have to travel to Kansai Airport just to fly domestically.

  Nonsense. I live in the part of Osaka that is the closest to Itami and that takes me exactly the same time to go to both airports,40 minutes. And nobody in Osaka has more than 15 minutes more to reach Kansai than Itami. Then if you are in a hurry, you take the Shinkansen to go to most of your business appointments in other Japanese cities. All those small domestic lines mostly bring the rich elderly people to their inaka or to see-sighting places. Good for them, but such people have all their time.

  People find it cool to fly from Itami because the marketing of aiplane companies tells them so, and the flights are scheduled from there. The reason companies favor Itami is the result of a big foggy bargaining between them, the local administrations and even the airports of Tokyo that did all they could to steal customers from Kansai aiport. For instance when they did the temporary and limited Itami~Haneda, then Narita~New-York flights. Nobody can say that was more convenient than Kansai~JFK. But I admit that a return ticket Osaka~New-York for 20 000 yen was tempting, so I tried to get a couple of tickets. Of course, they were none available, but I was given tons of promo paper for flights from Itami or international flights via Narita (nothing cheap). So, companies are obtaining better bribes and discounts to fly from Itami. If Hashimoto wants to be useful, he should work on that.

  "English town" ? Something like the so-international Rokko Island with its 2 or 3 small international schools ? He should go there sometimes to see what a ghost town it is now. Even in the good years, that was hardly a success, just a costly ghetto. The universities of Osaka are expected to downsize of 2/3 from now to 2035, as the number of potential students steadily drops, they are really desesperate. So who else expects a new uni could even pay its running cost ? Maybe he has a plan to make students come from abroad. Does he count on the reputation of Japan for the quality of its Engrish ? You're tired, Mr Hashimoto. But as long as you don't order us an olympic stadium or other big project, that's OK.

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  tokyotom at 01:22 AM JST - 21st November

  simply put, there is not much for "business" level gaijin in Kansai, i have lived there for 4 years, then tokyo for 8, it is night and day, Osaka has a long way to go to make it attractive, tokyo is starting to struggle as foreign companies are now skipping japan and going to china this boat has sailed long ago

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  smithinjapan at 06:56 AM JST - 21st November

  "The plan also envisages selling the airport site and using proceeds from the sale to build a new maglev train line linking downtown Osaka with Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay"

  What? You mean you won't have to do the hour and a half milk run (if you don't want to pay for the shinkansen from the city to the airport)?

  Anyway, it's definitely feasible to close the airport by then, although Kansai is not a good alternative. By that time I'm sure someone will come along and insist they build a new airport within the prefecture, though, so no worries.

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  telecasterplayer at 12:12 PM JST - 22nd November

  Doesn't sound like much of a plan. I hate to say this, but it's looking more and more likely that by 2035, English isn't going to be the language of the world's major economic and military superpower.
  And without Itami, I certainly hope Japanese jets can land on water, because isn't Kansai International Airport sinking?

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