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No change for now at Narita or Haneda

After transport minister Seiji Maehara announced on Sunday that Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (formally known as Tokyo International Airport) should become a 24 hour hub for domestic and international flights, the governor of Chiba Prefecture and the Mayor of Narita City spoke out strongly against the idea. Maehara’s proposal would alter the longstanding situation in which Haneda primarily serves domestic flights to Tokyo, while Narita handles international flights for the Kanto region.

For anyone living in Tokyo, Maehara’s reasoning is sound; Narita is simply less convenient for many travelers. At the same time, the lack of a domestic hub for connecting domestic flights to international means that South Korea’s Incheon airport has become a de-facto hub for Japanese travelers heading overseas.

One supporter of Maehara’s idea was Keidanren Chairman Fujio Mitarai, who on Tuesday told reporters, “I agree with the idea…We must consider the matter from passengers’ standpoint. Domestic and international flights should arrive at and depart from the same airport. In that sense, I have to say that there are no hub airports in Japan.”

However, Narita Mayor Kazunari Koizumi was quite angry over Maehara’s proposal, saying, “[Maehara’s] comment was a bolt out of the blue. It gave me the chills. It was like being defrauded.” And, “We cannot forget that blood spilled and people died in the fight to prevent the building of Narita Airport.”

Of course, Narita Airport is a huge source of revenue and jobs for the city of Narita. One is forced to wonder how much blood would be spilled in order to keep the airport in Narita.

A city of Tokyo’s size should have two international airports. New York has two (although LaGuardia handles some flights to the Caribbean, it does not have immigration facilities sufficient for international flights) and London has two.

At any rate, such a stir was caused by Maehara’s proposal that on Wednesday he announced that there would be no change in role for either airport. Although Maehara hinted that both airports should handle international flights in a more “integrated” way in the future, it appears as though his plan to turn Haneda into a regional hub has been severely dented.

This is a shame. In reality, both airports could play hub roles, especially when the high-speed rail link from Tokyo to Narita comes into play. As someone who has flown from Haneda to Narita (under odd circumstances), I think it’s worth pointing out how close the two airports really are. The truth is that Haneda is better suited as a candidate to serve as Tokyo’s hub airport, but there is quite a bit of politics to be worked out before such a thing could come about.

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