Haneda's Terminal 2 (Jiji)

Security and Convenience
Haneda is the world's fourth busiest airport, handling 63 million passengers a year, far surpassing Tokyo's other major airport at Narita, where 27 million passengers arrive and depart annually.

The new terminal, which opened after Terminal 1 had far exceeded its original 40-million passenger capacity, is primarily aimed at reducing congestion. The second terminal is also expected to help increase Haneda's future flight capacity after its fourth runway is completed in 2009.

The new terminal building contains 180,000 square meters of floor space spread throughout six floors, including one underground. The part occupied by a hotel rises to an additional two floors above ground. It cost ¥67 billion to construct ($670 million at ¥100 to the dollar). Haneda's two terminals together have a total floor space of 470,000 square meters.

Security was a particular priority in the new terminal's design. It is the first airport terminal building in Japan where arriving and departing passengers on domestic flights use entirely separate boarding bridge routes. Passengers catching flights board their aircraft from the building's second story, while arriving passengers pass through the boarding bridge down to the mezzanine floor that leads them to the arrivals lobby on the first floor.

The building also incorporates a number of barrier-free features. The moving walkways are one example. There are 26, located in the second-floor departure lobby and the first-floor arrival lobby. All are 1.4 meters wide, fully 40 centimeters wider than conventional moving walkways and wide enough to not only accommodate wheelchairs but also provide enough space for passing. Similarly, the building's elevators are wide enough to fit two wheelchairs side-by-side.

The terminal was built with passenger convenience in mind. There are 15 boarding bridges, bringing to 39 the total for the entire airport. Now 90% of all flights at Haneda can be boarded directly, up from 60% before the terminal opened. Consequently, most passengers are unaffected by rough weather when boarding their planes.

Intense Competition

The terminal has a spacious and airy design that employs a large number of glass panels to represent the architectural theme of the transparency of the sea. Thanks to the heavy reliance on natural light, lighting costs have been cut by around 40%.

Fully 93 shops and restaurants are located in the new terminal. These include chains of popular retailers and restaurants, such as the Chinese restaurant Akasaka Rikyu. Directly beside the terminal is the 387-room Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu, where guests can check updated flight information screens in their rooms and the lobby. One of the new terminal's biggest attractions is its fifth-floor observation deck, which offers views of airliners taking off and landing with Tokyo Bay as a backdrop.

Big changes have also been afoot over at Terminal 1, which has been given a ¥10 billion ($100 million) facelift. This has allowed for a total separation of airlines by terminal, a first for a Japanese airport. Japan Airlines (JAL), Skymark Airlines, and Skynet Asia Airways began their operations from the new-look Terminal 1 on December 21. The new arrangement comes amid heightened competition between the nation's two largest carriers, JAL and ANA. Both are stepping up their use of information-technology-based services and are installing more automatic check-in machines to attract passengers.

The New Year period, a peak time for air travel, has offered a foretaste of the increased competition to come in Japan's air travel sector.

 Page Top

Copyright (c) 2005 Web Japan. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese Government.