Kobe Airport
The airport served about 1.8 million passengers a year, making it the second busiest third-class airport in Japan, behind Kobe Airport, and traffic grew steadily as the Yaeyama Islands become a popular tourist destination. The runway of Ishigaki Airport could not accommodate planes larger than a Boeing 737, and the present site was not suitable for expansion due to urban encroachment. The airport also did not have facilities for handling standard cargo containers.