Runway under construction at Narita to open earlier than scheduled

Friday 10th April, 04:20 AM JST

NARITA —

The operator of Narita international airport plans to bring a 2,180-meter runway currently under construction into service as early as October, six months earlier than initially scheduled, after the 4,000-meter main runway was closed for 26 hours in March following a fatal crash of a FedEx cargo plane, sources close to the matter said Thursday.

The operator has already started discussions on accelerating the construction schedule with the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, according to the sources. It aims to use the two runways to boost annual arrival and departure slots to 300,000, an increase of 1.5 times over the current level, to secure the airport as a hub, the sources said. ‘‘We are now examining if there will be any problems, such as opposition from neighboring residents, as a result of bringing the schedule forward,’’ a senior ministry official said.

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Latest 15 of 18 Total Comments Show All

ebisen at 09:15 AM JST - 10th April

GW - FYI Haneda is by faaaaaaar the main airport in Tokyo for both passengers and cargo - why people won't check check the numbers before starting to talk.

Haneda is the biggest in Asia (both by passengers - albeit mostly national - and cargo). Narita can't really compare, and it mostly used for international only. Hopefully after the increase in size Narita will be more useful - also with the addition of high speed connection lines.
roomtemperature at 09:46 AM JST - 10th April

Ebisen, I think you didn't check the numbers yourself. I agree with you that Haneda is the busiest ( not the biggest ) airport in Japan and in Asia for passenger traffic. Even the No.4 in the world. But you're wide off the mark about cargo traffic. In Japan Narita and Kansai are busier and in Asia Hongkong, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing, Bangkok and Tapei ( plus Narita and Kansai ) are busier then No.23 Haneda. Anyway, I checked before talking.
roomtemperature at 09:47 AM JST - 10th April

sorry, that should be "than" of course.
Spanishwoman at 09:53 AM JST - 10th April

As European, when I go to visit my family I have no other choice than Narita. And living in the Tama region, it takes me about 3 hours to get there. If my flight is at 9, I have to leave muy house in the middle of the night. I always check the news about Tokyo airports and recently they said that in Haneda they would schedule flights to Paris and London later but that's not yet working, is it? I am afraid I still have to suffer the trip home-Narita for some years T-T
rick0909 at 11:06 AM JST - 10th April

Why are you guys arguing about statistics. I think the main point is Narita is the major gateway for people coming into Japan and also a major connecting hub for going into Asia.

The runway stoppage was inconvenient for international flights and caused massive delays.

The number of passengers or amount of cargo shipped is not the point of the article.
Wakarimasen at 11:08 AM JST - 10th April

How are they going to process the extra passengers in the out of date terminals? Hopefully more immigration officers and better baggage facilities will follow the new runway?
ebisen at 11:14 AM JST - 10th April

rick0909 - the number of people and metric tons of cargo are important for estimating the chances of seeing Haneda as the main international gateway :) - close to zero, although it would really improve travel conditions for a huge amount of people. It takes no more than 30-50 minutes to go to Haneda by most of the people living in Tokyo - compare that with the average 2-3 hours (if you're lucky) it takes to go to Narita ;) And although it seems big, Narita is neither big or convenient - with a single runway able to take your average 747 coming in for landing or wanting to depart it is a huge pain when that runway is incapacitated even for one day.
TokyoGas at 12:27 PM JST - 10th April

Who knows, if Narita ever obtains all the land it wants for its expansion, I can imagine Haneda being used for more overseas flights.
smithinjapan at 12:51 PM JST - 10th April

Of the top five most expensive airports to land, Japan has at least three, with Narita being number one and Kansai number two. It costs an airplane an average of 700,000 to land at these airports (or is it 7,000,000?), and as a result of the second runway at Kansai (unnecessary) and now this work at Narita, they are guaranteeing they remain the most expensive in the world. The Central International Airport (Nagoya) was built with this in mind and made the landing costs cheaper (I think it's number 4 most expensive in the world), and immediately airlines cut direct flights to many countries from Kansai in particular, and moved to Nagoya. In other words, with the continued unnecessary construction and increased costs, these airports are doing nothing but ensuring they lose a LOT of air traffic (Kansai no longer has direct flights to Canada at all, and most routes to Australia have been cut as well).

These airports are just being made larger and larger for the sake of being 'bigger' than their rivals, and it's no wonder airliners prefer every other country in Asia.
ebisen at 04:47 PM JST - 10th April

These airports are just being made larger and larger for the sake of being 'bigger' than their rivals, and it's no wonder airliners prefer every other country in Asia.

smithinjapan - you are sooo out of this subject - you really have no idea, do you? Have you ever seen a 12000 feet runway from the skies? - were you able to compare it with a 7-8000 feet one? didn't the later one seemed very short and unsafe to land on? Imagine the pilots trying to land on such tiny and bad prepared runways and you'll see the need for bigger and better airports... To give you something to think of while you're sitting on your next flight landing on a short runway in a big airplane - you have a much higher chance to die than landing on a longer and more comfortable one.
mindovermatter at 08:56 PM JST - 10th April

NewsFlash

GW

Haneda isn't going away, it's only getting bigger, NO obviously Narita is the Ordained Airport, they took farmers land, and too many of the ol boys have money in that game.
GW at 10:39 PM JST - 10th April

mindovermatter

never said HND was going away, but anyway, in case you havent figuered it out, HND is primarily a domestic A/P & NRT is an international A/P.
YuriOtani at 01:55 AM JST - 11th April

Narita makes it very hard for me to travel from the US to Okinawa. The airlines have cutback the flights to cubu and kansai. There is only a single ANA flight a day and it is hard to get a reservation. So I have to take the train to Haneda. Refuse to take "The Friendly Bus" getting tied up in traffic in a crushing full bus. The Government needs to limit the flights into Narita and make the service, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. If one lives in Tokyo it is ok except for location being 2 hours from the city center. Someone needs to reverse the plan to make Narita the central hub for Japan!
smithinjapan at 03:14 PM JST - 11th April

ebisen: "Imagine the pilots trying to land on such tiny and bad prepared runways and you'll see the need for bigger and better airports... To give you something to think of while you're sitting on your next flight landing on a short runway in a big airplane - you have a much higher chance to die than landing on a longer and more comfortable one."

Do tell us how many accidents there have been thusfar. Oh, and then tell me if I'm wrong about the costs involved and the costs spreading to the consumers and tax payers.
ebisen at 05:37 PM JST - 11th April

smithinjapan - I'm not your private secretary - do your own research - I can tell you there have been a lot of accidents with many victims where the short or inadequate runways were the major cause. The longer the runway the better for everybody - and yes, we have to pay for it - but hey - nobody said flying safely is cheap and the alternative (walking or driving) are both more dangerous and take a little bit longer - not to mention swimming...