Messages from Departments and Centers of NILIM

Aviation policy in a new age and the foremost
line of study on airports
Kiyoshi Houji
Director of Airport Department(Keywords) Aviation policy, Open sky(Airline deregulation policy), LCC, Airport management reform
1. Three aviation and airport policies in an integrated
mannerToday, it is the biggest challenge in our aviation
policy to pursue implementation of three combined
policies ‘Open sky’, ‘Promotion of LCC entry’ and‘Airport management reform’. By promotion andrealization of these three policies mutually and inparallel, the aviation policy in an integrated mannershall aim at growth of aviation field and contribute toeconomic revitalization in Japan.
The fact that
airport capacity in Tokyo metropolitan area had long
been a bottleneck of our aviation policy has largely
expanded and accordingly it has become possible toshift a policy from regulation administration based on
restricted capacity to open sky is behind the realizedpromotion of these policies.

Framework
Promoting open sky policy

domestic airline network unique to Japan has beendeveloped. In addition, at local airports, runway
extension projects have been executed one after
another to make available services of large aircrafts
with the aim of securing transportation capacity withHaneda Airport. While world aviation market has
been downsizing and increasing flight frequencies,
Japanese air network has been making a uniquedevelopment due to the bottleneck at Haneda Airport.
However, in October, 2010, the fourth runway (Drunway) was offered for use marking the beginning ofresolution of demand-supply bottleneck. Opening of D
runway has realized capacity expansion of domestic
airlines and departure and arrival slots were allocatedto international airlines. As a result, regularinternational flights which have been suspended since
opening of Narita Airport were to resume.
Continuously, while airport control is planned to beoriented, capacity will increase in stages and finally, it
is scheduled to increase capacity by 90,000 times/Ycompared to the capacity before the use of D runway
reaching to 447,000times/Y.
Expansion of annual arrival and departure slots in Tokyo metropolitan area airports (Haneda, Narita).

Growing aviation field

Slots in Haneda

BearerPromoting participation

Slots in Narita

Total slots

303K

220K523K(after Mar 25, 2012)

390K (60K)

250K

640K

Applicable from 2013 summer
flight schedule:

20K expansion fordomestic flights

270K

680K

(for international)

Vitalization of Japanese
economyUntil Oct, 2010:

Taker(before use of D runway in Haneda)

Current:

Airport management reformof new companies: LCC
410K (60K)

Integrated approach motivated by the increased allocation of departure andarrival slots in Tokyo metropolitan airports

2. Movement of airport capacity expansion in Tokyo
Metropolitan area

At Haneda Airport, development projects such as
construction of additional runways, extension ofterminals offshore have been executed in stages andcontinuously, but, it was unable to meet the active
demand for air transportation over-concentrated toTokyo metropolitan area. As a result, while lessening
flight frequencies, large aircrafts have been
maintaining mass transportation between Haneda andother airports all over the country, and in this way,(after Mar 31, 2013)

From then onward, implementation of open sky in Tokyo metropolitan area airports

Final form:(Haneda: End fiscal 2013)(Narita: Within fiscal 2014)

447K (90K)
30K expansion forinternational flights

300K

747K

On the other hand, Narita Airport has long been
operating with one runway because of the unfortunate
history of struggle at the time of planning andconstruction. During this period, while Asianneighboring countries opened international gateway
airports in succession, Narita Airport was compelled
to operate extremely inferior facilities. Finally, second

runway was extended to 2,500m in 2009, and based on
local consent after that, separate operation of two
runways has become possible and it is scheduled toexpand capacity to a large extent.
As a result of concurrent progress of capacity
expansion of these two airports, airport capacity inTokyo metropolitan area has expanded to 747,000
times/Y and international standard airport capacity has
been provided in Tokyo metropolitan area at last.

buildings (private), has been a problem.
Accordingly, it is planned to improve legal systems
to enable to integrate management by privatecompanies corresponding to the actual local situationand to promote airport management reform. By doing
this, it will be possible to provide new options toairport management.

3. Development of Open sky (airline deregulation)
policyAt the Airport Department, in consideration of thenew trend of aviation policies mentioned above, weare conducting research issues conforming to needs ofaviation administration.
For example, while using frequency of airports inTokyo metropolitan area is increasing and physicalrestrictions of facility maintenance isbecoming morestrict, it is imperative to develop technologies toprevent worrying troubles such as peel-off of runways
and to develop methods for efficient and effective
maintenance and inspection in less time.
In addition, taking share expansion by LCC intoconsideration, we are conducting study regarding
analysis of demand for air transportation and policy
simulation and also examination on maintenance ofairport facilities on the premise of LCC services.
Furthermore, taking it into consideration thatprivatization of airport will be making progress in thefuture, we believe that it is an important issue toconstruct a system to share know-how of airport
facility maintenance system possessed by thegovernment with airport administrators.

As there is hope for capacity expansion of Hanedaand Narita, the conventional bottleneck of airtransportation in Tokyo metropolitan area is to be
swiftly broken and Open sky (airline deregulation)
policy is to be implemented taking this opportunity.
Although Open sky has been called for in the past, it
has explanatory remarks to exclude Tokyo
metropolitan area which has the most active demand
and therefore it was unavoidable to be pointed out that
open sky policy had little effectiveness.
Against a background of capacity expansion inTokyo metropolitan area, open sky policy is to berealized in reality and in name. Airline companies
have long been under strict capacity restriction, butnow they have a chance to revitalize under a new open
sky policy and to obtain benefits from active economic
growth of foreign countries including Asian countries
and it is expected to lead to sustained economic
growth of our country.
4. Promotion of new entry of company such as LCC

Next, regarding airline companies as leaders ofaviation policy, it is an issue to develop new entries
such as Japanese LCC (Low Cost Carrier) that enteredin 2012 in succession under a fair competitiveenvironment. LCC is creating demand from segmentsof society who have never used air transportation
using a new business model different fromconventional airline companies and they are expected
to become the engine of air transportation growth.
Accordingly, to support them, the government takes
aggressive policy to promote new entries of LCC bydeveloping policies to review technical regulations
and to prepare dedicated terminals. Currently, theshare of LCC is about a mere 2%, but a policy target is
to increase it to 20 ~ 30% in 2020.
5.

Promotion of airport management reform

Furthermore, regarding airports as policy taker,
airport management reform shall be promoted foreffective airport operation. Landing fee revenues at 28
airports managed by the government is collectively
managed, and it has been pointed out that thegovernment lacks in local sense and management
sense. Also, a lack of viewpoints of integrated
management of airports caused by separate operating
body, namely, runways, etc. (government) and airport

6. New aviation policy and measures to be taken byresearch institute