New Japan airport set for bumpy take-off
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Japan’s 98th airport has opened amid concerns over whether it will be able to generate sufficient business to be sustainable. According to a ChannelNewsAsia report, Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport has experienced smooth operations so far, with five airlines initially operating from the hub, including the country’s two largest carrier; JAL and ANA.
To sustain its operations however, the new airport will need to see at least 1.38 million passengers pass through its doors every year. Critics have cited the airport’s location - in between the existing major hubs of Tokyo Haneda and Nagoya Centrair – as a disadvantage.
Tetsuro Yoshioka, President of Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport Co, also believes that local people may need to shift their travelling patterns for the airport to succeed.
“Japan has been a bullet train-focused culture until now. The aviation culture has not been cultivated very much, especially in Shizuoka. Taking the bullet train to Tokyo and Osaka was thought as good enough,” Yoshioka was reported saying.
Yoshioka added however, that operations since the airport’s 4 June opening had been encouraging; “For a start, the occupancy rate was 80-90%. We are very happy with this, but what we need to do is to maintain this.”
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