Land Min. Eyes Night Flight Deregulation at Haneda

Tokyo, May 19 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry has decided to deregulate late-night flights at Tokyo International Airport at Haneda to allow the operation of long-distance services from 2010, Jiji Press learned Monday.

In that year, the airport is scheduled to open a fourth runway, adding 110,000 daytime landing and takeoff slots to the current annual count of 300,000.

Although the airport plans to allocate 30,000 of the new slots to regular international flights, they are likely to be taken up by Asian-bound short-distance services.

Against this backdrop, the transport ministry decided to remove the current limit on nighttime international services to flights of no more than 1,947 kilometers, the sources said.

This would allow Europe and North America services as well as flights on Southeast Asia and South Asia routes between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., when Narita International Airport near Tokyo is closed due to the noise concerns of local residents.

Land Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba is set to announce the plan at Tuesday’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy meeting.

For daytime slots, the ministry in principle will pick international flights that are short-distance, in high demand and business-oriented, the sources said.END

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