Haneda airport Terminal 2 reopens to int'l flights after 3-year hiatus

Haneda is awesome.

The funniest experience I had there was when those'Why Did You Come to Japan?' fellas started interviewing me.

As soon as I said that I lived here,they were gone like the wind!

Lets enjoy it while it lasts!

Not sure why Hercolobus is being downvoted . Haneda is awesome. Even more awesome if you happen to be flying ANA!

Why did it take three and a half years?

Why I have to transfer through there? Direct flights please. Everything is expensive. Just a toilet stop and long wait, nothing more. Better than KL though.

@wolfshine: Read the article.

@Rodney? To Kansai? There are some, but they struggle for profit. Airlines are not charities.

there is no good reason for it to have been closed so long.

Even though the airport is wholly owned by the MLIT, it is run as a business, the Japan Airport Terminal Co., Ltd. If the demand warranted the opening of the terminal earlier, they would have opened it earlier. They already brought the reopening forward from the originally planned 2024 date. Do you seriously believe they kept the terminal closed just ... to make a point? Which point?

All the times I've been to Japan it's always been Narita I've landed at...

Only people who've asked me why I came to Japan have been in uniform and asking for my passport lol

@Thunderbird2. How is it? Not been there since 2014.

Haneda is utter trash when compared to Incheon, Hong Kong, or Singapore.

They already brought the reopening forward from the originally planned 2024 date

If that was actually their original plan, they are way more poorly run than I thought. Like wow. Utterly incapable of reading the room.

Utterly incapable of reading the room.

What has any of this to do with "reading the room"? The clients of an airport are the airlines, not the travelers. If the airlines don't ask for additional capacity, why would the airport open an additional terminal that then remains largely unused? To satisfy who or what exactly?

Haneda is much better to get to Tokyo than Narita, because it soooo inconvenient you see. Doubt we will head to Tokyo any time soon, went plenty of times during the pandemic, took advantage of dirt cheap hotel prices. It was a wonderful opportunity to explore Japan and my partner and idid just that.

What has any of this to do with "reading the room"? The clients of an airport are the airlines, not the travelers. If the airlines don't ask for additional capacity, why would the airport open an additional terminal that then remains largely unused? To satisfy who or what exactly?

First you said that Haneda was originally planning to reopen the terminal in 2024, which indicates they were basing that decision off of some theoretical increase in demand. Next you said that if the clients (it's just ANA, lol) didn't need the terminal reopened, they wouldn't reopen it. So I guess the only way I can interpret this is that Haneda and ANA had some agreement to do the former, but completely misread the situation as far as tourism demand went, and also possibly where the situation on Covid would stand in 2023.

Either which way, we're talking about two major Japanese entities that kind of fumbled the bag in being ready for the end of Covid and putting a plan into place for how to handle the situation going forward. All the while, prices for tickets have been through the roof, especially for overseas travel, and both these guys could have potentially eased the burden for everyone involved by doing something.

And again - this is nothing new. We've been seeing this pattern play out for three and a half years. It's all so unbelievably silly. Why does a never-ending stream of excuses need to be made to cover for Japanese bureaucratic inefficiency and general slowness?

First you said that Haneda was originally planning to reopen the terminal in 2024, which indicates they were basing that decision off of some theoretical increase in demand.

That "theoretical increase in demand" is what is known as a business plan. To quote Haneda itself: "The Medium-Term Business Plan assumed that operations would resume in FY24. The current year’s budget assumes resumption of operation from July 2023."

I'm still not sure what point you are trying to make. Haneda should have opened that terminal earlier? Why? When? To whose benefit, if they now just about manage to keep it busy for a third of the day?

Haneda is much better to get to Tokyo than Narita

Unless you live in Chiba...

Haneda is the cleanest airport in the world several years running.

And if you live in the city as I do, its more convenient than Marita and cheaper too.

For customers transferring domestic to international, it will be more convenient as well.