International business aviation movements in Japan have averaged a steady 12.6 percent increase between 2012 and 2016, and the trend remains on an upward trajectory in 2017, according to statistics from the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (Booth C10921). The major Tokyo airports of Haneda and Narita accounted for nearly 63 percent of the country’s private aviation operations in 2016, with more than 3,000 between them, although Haneda saw more than twice as many as Narita. Many believe that Haneda provides easier access to downtown Tokyo, due to the congested highway leading to and from Narita, which feeds through the city.
However, that dynamic is changing with the opening earlier this year of the Metropolitan Inter-City Expressway, which allows motorists the option of circumventing the crowded roads heading into the city, thus easing the bottleneck on the existing highway, according to Shota Fukuzawa, an official with the civil aviation bureau’s policy planning and research office.
The Aichi Prefecture area, which includes Chubu Centrair International and Nagoya Airports, has seen a 35 percent increase in the number of business aviation operations over the past year, and now is the second busiest region in the country for private flights (domestic and international) after Tokyo.
At Nagoya (Booth C10819), the country’s first designated business aviation airport, development projects currently under way include several hotels, which will open over the next year, and the Aichi International Exhibition Center, a 646,000-sq-ft convention facility—similar to Geneva's EBACE-host facility Palexpo—that is slated to debut in late 2019. With bullet train service to the capital, local authorities are expecting the airports will handle overflow private aviation traffic when the city hosts the 2020 Olympic Games.
Further afield, Mt. Fuji Shizuoka Airport has shortened the period in which a flight plan must be submitted to the CIQ office, from one week before the scheduled date of operation to 24 hours. Fukuzawa said his office is encouraging many other prefectural governments to similarly shorten the flight plan approval interval.
Meanwhile, New Chitose Airport in the Hokkaido region has now become a 24-hour facility. The area, in northern Japan, has experienced growth as a winter sports destination, while Toyama Airport extended its hours of operation—now 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.—to better accommodate business aviation.