Runway extension at Narita finally opens

NARITA, Chiba Pref. (Kyodo) Narita International Airport, the country's main international gateway, opened the long-awaited extension to its second runway Thursday.

A chartered Japan Airlines Boeing 747 takes off Thursday from Narita airport's newly extended second runway, becoming the first aircraft to use it. KYODO PHOTO

The opening was overshadowed partly by transport minister Seiji Maehara's recent comments that the government wants to turn Tokyo's Haneda airport into an international hub.

With Runway B extended to 2,500 meters from 2,180 meters, Narita International Airport Corp., which runs the airport, hopes to boost traffic from March by 20,000 flight slots from the current 200,000.

All wide-bodied aircraft other than the heavyweight Airbus A380 can now land on the newly extended runway and longer-range flights to the U.S. West Coast, Moscow and other destinations can depart from it, it said.

After Narita International Airport President Kosaburo Morinaka and passengers cut a ribbon in front of boarding gate A, a chartered Japan Airlines Corp. Boeing 747 jumbo became the first aircraft to use the extended runway when it took off shortly past 7 a.m. for Hakodate, Hokkaido, on a commemorative flight .

"We really wanted to board the first jumbo jet to take off from Runway B," said Masato Kato, a 49-year-old self-employed man who joined the tour from Tokyo with his 10-year-old son.

People on both sides of the decades-old controversy over the airport's construction gathered near the runway, including landowners living in small settlements surrounded by airport facilities, airport company officials and locally elected Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Hajime Yatagawa.

The construction of Narita's second runway, which lies parallel to 4,000-meter-long Runway A, had been delayed from 1974 due to strong opposition from many who jointly own land and still refuse to sell to the airport operator.

Opening in 1978 some 65 km east of central Tokyo in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, the airport's status as Tokyo's main international hub has been threatened recently by plans to accommodate more international flights at Haneda airport, which basically takes up an ever-expanding artificial island in Tokyo Bay. Haneda is currently used chiefly for domestic flights.

Even after the 2,180-meter section of Runway B became operational in 2002 — 800 meters north of its originally planned location — negotiations with landowners made little headway.

The transport ministry therefore decided to extend the runway at the other end, clearing the way for construction to begin in September 2006.

The extension had been expected to open next March.