From: robohen@ocf.berkeley.edu (Henry Robertson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: HOKKAIDO'S ONLY AIRLINE IS USUALLY JUST WINGING IT
Date: 16 Nov 1992 01:07:37 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: headcrash.berkeley.edu

(Reuters) -- SAPPORO, Hokkaido--An American oilman recently got more than he
bargained for when he tried to ship some cargo on Hokkaido's sole airline,
Shiku Airlines.

Shiku officials told him his expensive mining equipment was unsuitable for
the regular Sapporo-Tokyo service and he would have to charter a whole
plane.

The businessman duly shelled out the $6,500 requested for a 20-year-old
Soviet-built tiwn-prop Antonov-26, and gathered his goods at the airport.

To his surprise, he found Shiku had booked 18 passengers and extra cargo on
his plane.

Worse was to come.  The American emerged from the airport terminal with the
last of his equipment just in time to see his aircraft taxi down the runway
and take off.

Shiku offered little comfort, charging the infuriated American a first-
class fare on the next flight to Tokyo.

As growing numbers of foreigners venture into the remot Northern island,
many will have no choice but to fly Shiku, which is rapidly earning a
reputation as one of the world's quirkiest airlines.

The caprice for most travelers begins at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.  Taking
advantage of subsidized fares, Hokkaido businessmen use the flights for
trading trips.  Regular passengers have to scramble over huge bales
of fish, seaweed, and other goods just to reach the check-in conter.  

Excess baggage dogs travelers on the plane as spare seats quickly fill up
with surplus bags.

The lean-back mechanism on some seats is broken and collapsing chairs
threaten unwary passengers seated behind.

In winter, Sapporo airport offers visitors a frosty welcome.  When diesel
fuel was available in the affluent '80s, a bus picked up the first passengers
off the plane, leaving laggards to walk the several hundred icy yards to the
terminal.

With the "bursting of the bubble economy," the bus service has stopped, so
all passengers now brave the sub-zero temperatures unaided.

Another surprise awaits arrivals.  The island's single baggage carousel has
broken down, so the luggage truck simply backs up to a hole in the wall and
handlers hurl suitcases at startled passengers.

Despite the hassle, most travelers are thankful to arrive at all.  Flights
are often delayed for hours while engineers tinker with Shiku's only
long-haul jet, a 16-year old Tupolev-154 on lease from Aeroflot.

The last-minute patchups seem to work.  The only serious stoppage came  
earlier this year when a truck hit the parked plane at Haneda airport,  
grounding it for several days.

Some help is on the way, with a 20-year-old Boeing 727 donated by South Korea
soon to begin service.

Air navigation can be dicey on Shiku.  One flight in June tried three times
to land at Sapporo before the pilot told worried passengers that the
aircraft had to divert to the Russian city of Vladivostok because of poor
visibility.

A keen French woman searching her tour map for the new destination caught the
eye of a passing attendant, who politely asked to borrow the simple chart.

After the plane had landed, the steward returned the map saying, "Thank you
very much.  The pilot found it most useful."

Last January, an incoming U.S. Air Force flight faced another problem.
Sapporo air-traffic controllers seemed unable to understand key flight terms
such as "altitude" and "elevation," giving the pilot temperature information
instead.

The pilot of the huge C05A Galaxy transport plane carrying medical aid
could not find a directional beacon and found he had to negotiate a landing
on hiw own in the thick fog.

"Make it a good landing, make it a good landing," murmured an anxious U.S. Army
colonel in the control tower as the biggest plane ever to land at the airport
touched down safely.

Shiku's domestic flights offer other adventures.  Cargo planes ply most 
routes on the simple logic that you can get more people on board if there are
no seats.

Huddled passengers spend much of the time in the airborne saunalike 
atmosphere vomiting or tring to stop piles of luggage toppling on them.

On a recent flight to the regional capital from Abashiri on Hokkaido's 
northern tip, about 100 passengers managed to scramble aboard, with at least
one of them finding floor space in the cockpit.

But since the middle of October fuel shortages have grounded most domestic
flights, stranding thousands of people.  Around Sapporo, dozens of Japanese
gather each day around mountains of belongings, waiting to hire
alternative transport.

"Even LDP politicians, yakuzas, and people who have just had liver operations
cannot get tickets," said a retired teacher who had waited in vain for
three weeks.