TOKYO—Japan's Narita International Airport has long the scourge of frequent fliers and business travelers, but, after decades of delay Tokyo is offering an alternative.
On Thursday, Haneda Airport—a mere 20 minutes from downtown Tokyo—is set to open its doors to international scheduled flights and increase its capacity by 40%, in a move that analysts have called the "big bang" in aviation liberalization in Japan.
Despite Japan's reputation for efficient infrastructure, the country has lagged behind its Asian peers when it came to its main international airport, which is located among rice paddies an hour and a half from central Tokyo.
Bloomberg News Traditional Japanese tea lounge is seen inside the new international terminal building of Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan. The terminal is due to open on Oct. 21. "If Narita disappeared, I wouldn't mind," said Hiromichi Shirakawa, an economist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo who travels abroad six to seven times a year. "Access to Haneda is so much easier. Think of the opportunity cost of travel time: it takes over an hour [to Narita] versus 15 minutes [to Haneda]," he said.
Haneda, which had been operating a just a handful of international charter flights to Asian destinations such as Beijing and Hong Kong, was set unveil its gleaming new international terminal Thursday. The introduction of scheduled international flights will be staggered from Oct. 31, and by next spring, passengers will be able to fly from Haneda to Paris, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Singapore and Bangkok, among other destinations. The new runway will create an additional 110,000 landing slots a year, 60,000 of which will be used for international flights. By 2013, the government aims to increase international slots to 90,000.
Japan has consistently been a nonpresence on the top ten international airport list, which is dominated by Asian gateways: in 2010, Singapore's Changi Airport, South Korea's Incheon International Airport and Hong Kong International Airport were the top three in the world respectively, according to the Skytrax World Airport Awards.
Part of the impetus to expand Haneda was to increase Japan's competitiveness against its Asian peers, particularly in an era where low-cost carriers in the region are flourishing. Due to regulations, Japan has the highest landing fees in the world: It costs 770,000 yen to land a Boeing 747-400 at Narita, compared with 70,000 yen at Heathrow in London.
The government hopes the revolution at Haneda will encourage more visitors to Japan, particularly from Asia. It also signaled a shift in policy when the Democratic Party of Japan came into power. Narita had been the brainchild of Japanese bureaucrats when it opened in 1978, and efforts to expand Haneda had, for years, been shelved due to the political controversy it would cause.
"Haneda will mark its first step toward becoming a 24-hour international hub," said Sumio Mabuchi, Japan's transport minister, in a speech last weekend.
But there's one major drawback: flights to the U.S., Europe and certain Asian destinations will only be allowed between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. until at least 2013. That's because there isn't enough capacity during the day to add international flights, according to a Japanese transport ministry official.
"We're of course thrilled that Haneda will be used for international flights but for European Union carriers, passengers land in the middle of the night in Europe. Haneda is not an international airport due to this," said Bjorn Kongstad, policy director at the European Business Council in Japan.
American Airlines is set to launch its flight from Haneda to New York's JFK airport in January - it departs from Haneda at 6:40 a.m. and lands at JFK at 11:30 p.m. Will Ris, American Airlines's senior vice president for government affairs, said: "In any venture there has to be transition time. The times are not ideal but we're happy to do it."
James Lawden, a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer law firm in Tokyo, said: "If one could get flights at the right time it would be very positive."
Separately, on Wednesday, the chairman of Japan Airlines Corp. said the airline plans to boost its capital by another 50 billion yen ($615 million), on top of an expected 350 billion yen injection from a state-backed turnaround body, as it restructures itself out of bankruptcy.
Kazuo Inamori also said the company, together with the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp., is trying to drum up new loans from JAL's reluctant creditors as it plans to refinance its roughly 300 billion yen debt by the end of March.
JAL, which filed for the country's biggest nonfinancial bankruptcy protection in January, likely registered a record operating profit during the fiscal first-half, sharply reversing the year-earlier loss of 95.8 billion yen, according to Mr. Inamori.
—Kana Inagaki contributed to this article.Write to Mariko Sanchanta at mariko.sanchanta@wsj.com
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