Narita or Haneda? How to choose the arrival airport when booking a flight to Tokyo
Until a dozen years ago, for those coming to Tokyo from Europe there was only Narita. You would fly to the Japanese capital [...]
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Japan
Until a dozen years ago, for those coming to Tokyo from Europe there was only Narita. Were you flying to the Japanese capital with Lufthansa? Were you landing at Narita. Did you fly Alitalia, Air France, Swiss, British Airways, Finnair, Austrian, SAS, KLM? Ditto with potatoes.
In this article:
The history of Tokyo's two airports
For 30 years, From the early 1980s until 2010, Narita had been designated by the Japanese government as the capital's international airport, while Haneda (the historic airport overlooking Tokyo Bay opened in 1931) Had been used for domestic traffic.
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That in Japan, it must be said, was (and is) a lot of stuff, with many of the country's major domestic routes flown by Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways with Boeing 747s, Douglas DC-10s, and other widebody aircraft with very high seat-density interior configurations (the 747s used on Tokyo-Osaka or Tokyo-Sapporo could carry more than 500 passengers).
Then, since the 1990s, bullet trains have downsized domestic air traffic on routes less than 500 kilometers. But that does not detract from the fact that Haneda, in 2000, put over 56 million passengers on the books and was the sixth busiest airport in the world.
All without international and intercontinental flights, which came, precisely, to Narita. Opened in 1978, the airport was designed specifically to relieve congestion at Haneda, at the price of a very tough challenge from local communities and environmentalists who have been battling him for years with protests, sit-ins and actual acts of sabotage.
So much so that Of the five runways originally planned, only two were then actually implemented (of which only one is long enough to accommodate wide-body aircraft).
For this, and also for the considerable distance from downtown Tokyo (60km), Narita has always been considered the "unfortunate son' (paraphrasing the title of a famous song by Creedence Clerwater Revival). E Haneda the 'little gem' near the city center favored by domestic business traffic.
The change of course in 2010
Until, and we are around 2010, after major infrastructure work that provided Haneda with two additional runways to the original runways and a new terminal, the Japanese government has reversed course by opening Haneda's doors to international flights by 'premium' airlines and incentivizing the use of Narita by leisure and low-cost carriers, even if major full-service companies were allowed to fly on both airports.
The result has been a real 'exodus' from Narita of many carriers, a kind of 'rush to Haneda', seen as a prestigious stopover just a few minutes by train from downtown Tokyo. In just these weeks, Haneda is at the center of a dispute between United and American Airlines, who would like to have more slots available at the 'city airport.'
Moving between the two stopovers
The fact is that, today, in booking a flight on Tokyo, or a connecting flight in Tokyo, it is a good idea to check at which of the two airports the airline with which we have booked arrives and whether the next flight, if any, departs from the same airport at which it lands.
This is because for Moving between the two airports takes a minimum of 60 to 80 minutes by bus, cab or train. And why, even though transportation between Narita and Tokyo has improved significantly in recent years, Reaching the city center involves a journey of never less than 45 minutes, while from Haneda it takes only about 15 minutes.
ITA Airways was also part of the 'race to Haneda' a couple of years ago., which unlike what Alitalia has always done, lands and takes off its A350s there to and from Rome Fiumicino.
Who flies and where
The list of European airlines flying to the city airport' also includes. Air France, British Airways, Finnair, Lufthansa, SAS and Turkish Airlines. All arrive and depart from terminal 3, which opened in 2010 and is the newest of those in Haneda.
Emirates, for example, flies to Narita daily with the A380 and from Haneda with the 777. Also taking off from Narita are ANA's flying turtles heading for Honolulu, the only route on which Japan's largest airline uses its A380s.
Air France, Finnair and Turkish also fly to Narita. While Austrian Airlines, KLM, Lot Polish Airlines, Swiss, and Iberia (the latter from October 27, 2024) fly only to Narita.
Which is one of the few in the world where each of the three terminals is dedicated to one of the three international alliances: like this, Terminal 1 is the base for carriers that are part of Skyteam (from Europe Air France KLM), terminal 2 serves Oneworld airlines (from Europe Finnair and Iberia), while Terminal 3 is the base for those that are part of Star Alliance (from Europe Lot Polish Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Swiss).
