Narita International Airport (Japanese: 成田国際空港, Hepburn: Narita Kokusai Kūkō; IATA: NRT, ICAO: RJAA), originally known as New Tokyo International Airport (新東京国際空港, Shin Tōkyō Kokusai Kūkō), is an international airport serving the Greater Tokyo Area. It is located approximately 60 kilometers (37 mi; 32 nmi) east of central Tokyo in Narita, Chiba. The airport covers approximately 1,137 hectares (2,810 acres) and is undergoing expansion that will increase its total area to approximately 2,300 ha (5,700 acres).
The airport's development was highly controversial and was opposed by many local residents, with opposition continuing decades after its opening. The government's decision to construct the airport without the consent of many affected landowners led to the Sanrizuka Struggle, a prolonged series of protests against the airport's construction and land expropriation. The original plan called for five runways, but only two were ultimately built amid difficulties acquiring land from opposing farmers. Some privately held properties remain within the airport complex, including a farm around which one of the runways was built. The dispute has also contributed to restrictions on airport operations, including a mandatory late night curfew prohibiting aircraft operations between midnight and 6 a.m. to limit aircraft noise in surrounding communities.
Narita was historically Japan's busiest airport for international passenger and cargo traffic. In 2018, it handled 33.4 million international passengers and 2.2 million tonnes of international cargo. In 2018, Narita was also the second-busiest airport in Japan in terms of aircraft movements (after Haneda Airport in Tokyo) and the tenth-busiest air freight hub in the world. Its 4-kilometer (13,000 ft) main runway is among the longest in Japan. Narita serves as an international hub for Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, and Nippon Cargo Airlines, and is also an operating base for low-cost carriers Air Japan, Jetstar Japan, Peach Aviation, Spring Airlines Japan, and Zipair Tokyo.
== History ==
=== Construction and local resistance ===
Before Narita opened, Tokyo International Airport (also known as Haneda Airport) was Tokyo's main international airport. Haneda, located in Tokyo Bay, was surrounded by densely populated residential and industrial areas, and began to suffer capacity and noise issues in the early 1960s as jet aircraft became common. The Japanese transport ministry commissioned a study of alternate airport locations in 1963, and in 1965 selected a plan to build a five-runway airport in the village of Tomisato. The site was later moved 5 km (3.1 mi) northeast to the villages of Sanrizuka and Shibayama, where the Imperial Household had a large farming estate. This development plan was made public in 1966.
The government argued that one merit of the site was the relative ease of expropriation of land. However, residents were not consulted during the initial planning phase, and learned of the selection of the airport site through the news. This led to shock and anger among the local community, which continued for many years. Though the Japanese government had eminent domain power by law, such power was rarely used due to a preference to resolve land disputes consensually.
At the time, the socialist movement still had considerable strength in Japan, evidenced by the large-scale student riots in Tokyo in 1960. Many in the "new left" such as Chūkaku-ha opposed building Narita, reasoning that the real purpose for the new airport was to promote capitalism and to provide additional facilities for US military aircraft in the event of war with the Soviet Union. These individuals sought to ally with the more conservative local farmers who simply did not want to give up their land for the airport.
About 1966, a group of residents combined with student activists and left-wing political parties formed a popular resistance group, the Sanrizuka-Shibayama Union to Oppose the Airport, which remained active until fracturing in 1983 and they started protest activity called Sanrizuka Struggle. Similar strategies had already been employed during the postwar era to block the expansion of Tachikawa Air Base and other US military facilities in Japan. In June and July 1966, the Union sent formal protests to the mayor of Narita, the governor and vice-governor of Chiba Prefecture, and the prefectural office of the Liberal Democratic Party. In November 1967, when the Transport Ministry began surveying the perimeter of the airport, Union members set up roadblocks. The Zengakuren radical student union then began sending students to Narita to help the local farmers. During eminent domain, three policemen were killed by activists.
Takenaka Corporation constructed the first terminal building, which was completed in 1972. The first runway took several more years due to constant fights with the Union and sympathizers, who occupied several pieces of land necessary to complete the runway and temporarily built large towers in the runway's path.
The runway was completed and the airport scheduled to open on 30 March 1978, but this plan was disrupted when, on 26 March 1978, a group of protestors broke into the control tower and destroyed much of its equipment, causing about $500,000 in damage and delaying the opening until 20 May.
The airport opened under a high level of security; the airfield was surrounded by opaque metal fencing and overlooked by guard towers staffed with riot police. 14,000 security police were at the airport's opening and were met by 6,000 protesters; a Japanese newscaster remarked at the time that "Narita resembles nothing so much as Saigon Airport during the Vietnam War." Protestors attacked police on the opening day with rocks and firebombs while police responded with water cannons; on the other side of Tokyo, a separate group of protestors claimed responsibility for cutting the power supply to an air traffic control facility at Tokorozawa, which shut down most air traffic in the Tokyo area for several hours. The National Diet passed a special statute, the Emergency Measures Act Relating to the Preservation of Security at New Tokyo International Airport, specifically banning the construction and use of buildings for violent and coercive purposes relating to the new airport.
The conflicts at Narita were a major factor in the decision to build Kansai International Airport in Osaka offshore on reclaimed land, instead of again trying to expropriate land in heavily populated areas.
Japan's international flag carrier, Japan Airlines, moved its main international hub from Haneda to Narita, and Northwest and Pan American also moved their Asian regional hubs from Haneda to Narita. The two U.S. carriers operate fifth-freedom routes to various Asian countries under a bilateral agreement. Pan American transferred its Pacific Division, including its Narita hub, to United Airlines in February 1986. Japanese domestic carrier All Nippon Airways began scheduled international flights from Narita to Guam in 1986.
=== Security ===
From 1978 to 2015, Narita Airport was the only airport in Japan where visitors were required to show ID upon entry, due to the tumultuous history of the airport's construction and the violent protests before, during, and after its opening. By 2012, Narita's operator was considering dispensing with the security checks. Given that the number of flight slots at Narita are also increasing, the anti-airport struggles were decades in the past, and Haneda Airport began to re-instate international flights, a council headed by Chiba governor Kensaku Morita consisting of prefectural government officials, the Narita International Airport Corporation and business groups in Narita, proposed scrapping the ID checks. The Chiba prefectural police objected, stating that the checks were necessary to detect extremists and terrorists.
NAA experimented with a new threat detection system for two months in 2013, using a combination of cameras, explosive detectors, dogs and other measures in lieu of passport and baggage checks upon entering the terminal. In March 2015, NAA announced that the ID checks would cease and the new system would be used for terminal building security, effective as of the end of that month.
Narita Airport was the first Japanese airport to house millimeter wave scanners. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced in March 2010 that trials would be carried out at Narita from 5 July through 10 September 2010. Five types of machines were to be tested sequentially outside the Terminal 1 South Wing security checkpoint; the subjects were Japanese nationals who volunteered for trial screening, as well as airport security staff during hours when the checkpoint is closed.
=== Privatization ===
In 2003, a Narita International Airport Corporation Act (成田国際空港株式会社法) was passed to provide for the privatization of the airport. As part of this change, on 1 April 2004, New Tokyo International Airport was officially renamed Narita International Airport, reflecting its popular designation since its opening. The airport was also moved from government control to the authority of a new Narita International Airport Corporation, usually abbreviated to "NAA."
The headquarters is on the airport grounds. The authority previously had its head office in Tokyo with some offices in and around Narita; the head office moved and the Narita offices consolidated according to the decision by the Japanese Cabinet in July 1988 making it a special corporation. The NAA head office started operations at the airport on 1 July 1996, in the former Japan Airlines operations center, acquired by NAA in July 1994. Renovations occurred from September 1995 to March 1996. After the move, the Kishimoto Building in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo housed the NAA's Tokyo functions.
To assist in the relationship with the local community, NAA operates the Community Consultation Center (地域相談センター) and the Airport Information Center (空港情報センター). The Community Consultation Center is in the Chiyoda Branch of Shibayama-machi Community Center in Osato, Shibayama, while the Airport Information Center is located in Sanrizuka, Narita.
=== Expansion and increased capacity ===
New Tokyo International Airport was originally envisioned to have five runways, but the initial protests in 1965 led to a down-scaling of the plan to three runways: two parallel northwest–southeast runways 4,000 m (13,123 ft) in length and an intersecting northeast–southwest runway 3,200 m (10,499 ft) in length. Upon the airport's opening in 1978, only one of the parallel runways was completed (16R/34L, also known as "Runway A"); the other two runways were delayed to avoid aggravating the already tense situation surrounding the airport. The original plan also called for a high-speed rail line, the Narita Shinkansen, to connect the airport to central Tokyo, but this project was also cancelled with only some of the necessary land obtained.
By 1986, the strengthening Japanese yen was causing a surge of foreign business and leisure travel from Japan, which made Narita's capacity shortage more apparent. However, eight families continued to own slightly less than 53 acres (21 ha) of land on the site that would need to be expropriated in order to complete the other two runways. Although the government could legally force a sale of the land, it elected not to do so "because of fears of more violence." By 1991, Narita was handling 22 million passengers a year, despite only having a design capacity of 13 million.
==== Terminal 2 and the second runway "B" ====
On 26 November 1986, the airport authority began work on Phase II, a new terminal and runway north of the airport's original main runway. To avoid the problems that plagued the first phase, the Minister of Transport promised in 1991 that the expansion would not involve expropriation. Residents in surrounding regions were compensated for the increased noise-p
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