Tokyo's third airport opens to predictions of failure

Tokyo's third international airport opened today amid criticism it is a waste of money expected to serve just a fraction of the predicted passengers.

About 170 first arrivals on a special flight from western Kobe were greeted by marching bands, officials and airport mascots.

However, its regular schedule has only one international flight a day and no domestic flights until next month.

It was conceived to relieve worsening congestion at Narita, the city’s main international airport, and Haneda, which handles more domestic traffic. But Ibaraki’s initial annual passenger estimate of 800,000 is now expected to be a quarter of that size.

That is negligible compared to Tokyo’s two main airports, which serve 100 million passengers together. Ibaraki also is more than two hours by train or bus from central Tokyo – even farther than Narita, which many already complain is too far.

Japan’s new government has criticised the airport as unnecessary, epitomising the often wasteful public works projects promoted by the previous pro-business administrations.

But the project was not cancelled because it was too far along when Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government came to power last September.

Funded by money from the central and local governments, it has only one international regular flight to Seoul, operated by South Korea’s Asiana Airlines.

No domestic regular flights are expected until mid-April, when budget carrier Skymark Airlines plans to start flying to Kobe, in western Japan.