In Japan, No-Frills Airport Lures Bargain Players

Mito, Japan: The sweeping order from the governor was the kind that gives Japanese bureaucrats heart attacks: plans for a three-story airport terminal, painstakingly laid over years, were to be scrapped and replaced with a single-floor layout.
Amenities would be pared to a minimum. Jetways for boarding would be eliminated; passengers would board planes from the tarmac and perhaps even handle their own check-in luggage. All the ideas were so blasphemous in service-conscious Japan that one local official said his “mind went blank” when he heard of the plan.
Ibaraki Airport, about 53 miles north of Tokyo, opens on Thursday and is intended to be a completely new type of Japanese airport: a no-frills facility that could finally open up Japan’s expensive capital city to low-budget airlines.
Ignored by Japan’s big-league carriers, the little airport is going against all odds. It is the 98th airport in a country with a landmass smaller than California’s. Ibaraki Prefecture is devoid of tourist attractions, except for an ancient garden, known for its plum blossoms, and famous purveyors of natto, or pungent, fermented soy beans.
Even Japan’s transportation minister, Seiji Maehara, has been hard-pressed to muster much enthusiasm for the airport’s opening, despite its roughly 22 billion yen ($243 million) from local and national coffers. The news media have painted Ibaraki as just another money-losing airport, an example of the useless public works projects that dot Japan’s countryside.
A closer look at Ibaraki, however, reveals a strategy that could jolt Japan’s long-stagnant aviation sector.
Travel experts say low-cost air services have the potential for growth, especially as incomes rise in big countries like China and India, bringing air travel to more people. Budget carriers have sprung up across the Asia-Pacific region.
10/03/10 Hiroko Tabuchi/New York Times, USA

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Categories: Airports Mar 2010, New Mar 2010