Haneda Airport
Haneda is known as Tokyo International Airport (due to it being Tokyo’s first airport) but today it handles mostly domestic traffic with most of the flights coming into Japan from overseas using the newer Narita International Airport which is about 90km to the north east of the city.
Hanedia is in Ota which is close to the city and is Japan’s largest airport and handles over 60 million people a year, most travelling within Japan with a small amount of international traffic to Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai . In 2005 it was the worlds fourth busiest airport.
The airport opened in 1931 then only a small runway on the bay front nothing like the huge concrete maze it is today. In 1945 the US took over the airport and named it Haneda Army Air Base and it wasn’t until 1947 when commercial international flights were scheduled to the airport and JAL, or Japan Airlines started its domestic operations in 1951. In 1952 part of the airbase was given back to civilian authorities and it became known as Tokyo International Airport then in 1958 all the base was converted to civilian use.
For the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games a monorail was buit from the airport to the city of Tokyo and later in 1970. The Tokyo Monorail takes about 19 minutes to reach Hamamatsucho Station where passengers connect to the Yamanote line to reach their Tokyo destination. With the shortage of land the airport was no longer able to handle the huge amount of traffic so plans for another International airport at Narita was opened in 1978.
The Hanedia airport consists of 3 terminals, Terminal One is known as Big Bird and opened in 1993 replacing a smaller complex, it houses JAL, Skymark and StarFlyer as the main two carriers. It’s long narrow building houses six stories of restaurants and shopping as well as a huge rooftop observation deck which is very popular to see off and welcome travellers.
ANA, Air Do and Skynet are the primary users of Terminal Two, a small international terminal also exsists with construction underway to replace this with a much larger building in 2010.
With this new facility there are plans for Hanedia to handle more international flights and a fourth runway is also under development to cater for the extra traffic as now Narita is becoming overcrowded.
As well as monorail the airport is serviced by bus and rail. Bus can be a slow process with the Tokyo traffic but the Keikyu rail line travels to Shinagawa station which takes about 20 minutes, there are also services to Yokohama which is 30 minutes away. Some Keisei Line trains also link up for transfers to Narita, which takes about 2 hours to reach.
Also on Happy Jappy
Official site:
http://www.tokyo-airport-bldg.co.jp/fl/english/
