, often referred to as is the primary regional

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

for the Kansai region of Japan, including the major cities of

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

and

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whi ...

. Classified as a first class airport, it is the airport closest to

, southwest of Kyoto Station. Despite its "international" designation, the airport caters exclusively to domestic flights.

Kansai International Airport Kansai International Airport ( ja, 関西国際空港, Kansai Kokusai Kūkō) commonly known as is the primary international airport in the Greater Osaka Area of Japan and the closest international airport to the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and ...

( away) took over the region's international traffic in 1994 and competes with Itami for domestic traffic. Itami also faces competition from

Kobe Airport is an airport on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, south of Sannomiya StationAIS Japan
Itami,

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

because most of its land is located there. A portion of the airport property is also located in

Toyonaka is a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on October 15, 1936. Geography Climate Toyonaka has a Humid subtropical climate (Köppen ''Cfa'') characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light to no snowfall. The averag ...

and Ikeda cities of

Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Nar ...

. The terminal complex is located in all three of these cities, and the only access from the Itami side is via a long tunnel that passes below the runway and apron. In FY2006, Itami was Japan's third busiest airport and the Kansai region's busiest. In 2015, this airport had 139,450 aircraft movements, serving 14,541,936 domestic passengers and carrying 140,668 metric tons of freight cargo.

History

Itami Airport opened as in 1939. Prior to the opening of Itami, Kizugawa Airport was Osaka's main civilian airport. It handled both

Seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

s and Conventional ones. In 1931, the Osaka municipal government drafted plans to construct a new "No. 1 Osaka Airport" near the mouth of the Yamato River, also targeted at seaplanes, but concerns about

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influ ...

and protests from Kobe-based businesses led the government to build the "No. 2 Airport" for land-based aircraft instead. ItamiAirBaseOsaka

Construction began in July 1936 on a 53-

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre i ...

(131 acre) site. The new airport was primarily used by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

during its early years. U.S. occupation forces took over Osaka Airport after the end of World War II in 1945, expanding it to 221 hectares and renaming it Itami Air Base. The airfield was used extensively by US forces during the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

. In 1954,

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

and

Joe DiMaggio Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yank ...

stopped at Itami during their honeymoon, and in 1956, the base was used in the filming of the movie '' Sayonara''. Itami was renamed following its return to Japanese control in March 1959. The Japanese government quickly implemented a plan to expand the airport by an additional 82.5 ha so that it could accommodate

jet aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, jet ...

. Despite some protests from locals, the plan was approved by the neighboring city assemblies between 1960 and 1961 with strong backing from local business groups, and land was purchased between 1962 and 1964, in part out of the aviation industry's interest in keeping pace with the development of the Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail link between Tokyo and Osaka. The main runway was completed in 1970.

International era (1950s-1994)

In its heyday Itami was served by a variety of major international carriers, including

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United State ...

(Japan routes transferred to United in 1985),

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...

, Air India, Cathay Pacific and Korean Air. Northwest Airlines was a major international operator at Itami, and by 1992 offered nonstop service to New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Sydney. The Sydney service became the focus of a rare aviation agreement dispute between the United States and Australia, as less than 30% of passengers on the Australia-Japan segment were originating in the U.S. even though the "primary objective" of the route authority, according to the US-Australia aviation agreement, was service between the US and Australia. In 1993, after Australia demanded arbitration and the US implemented retaliatory sanctions against

Qantas Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the world's third-oldest airline still in operation, having been founde ...

, Northwest was forced to limit the amount of local Australia-Japan traffic on the Osaka-Sydney route, and subsequently abandoned the service entirely. B.O.A.C also operated in Osaka until 1974, flying from either

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Political friction

While Japan's economy was growing rapidly, the area around Itami Airport became an increasingly dense residential area for commuters to Osaka. A number of factors made the airport an intensely debated political issue in the 1960s and 1970s, among them: * The introduction of

made noise and air pollution a growing concern among locals. * The

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...

had rights to use Itami Airport for refueling and maintenance, and frequently sent military aircraft there for overhauls at the Shin Maywa Industries plant there. This activity caused consternation among locals who were opposed to the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Jet flights at Itami began on June 1, 1964, and triggered complaints by neighboring residents about

noise pollution Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mai ...

. In addition,

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

procedures were used in 1966 to obtain land for the runway expansion at Itami and led to local protests, as had also been the case in the construction of

Narita International Airport Narita International Airport ( ja, 成田国際空港, Narita Kokusai Kūkō) , also known as Tokyo-Narita, formerly and originally known as , is one of two international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other one being Haneda Airpo ...

near Tokyo. In May 1968, a group of local citizens decided to sue the government for damages related to noise pollution from Itami Airport. The lawsuit was filed in December 1969. The Japanese government concurrently banned takeoffs and landings at Itami between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM, effective February 1970. In February 1974, the Osaka District Court issued a qualified ruling in favor of the plaintiffs which limited the scope of their damages. The plaintiffs appealed to the Osaka High Court, which ruled in November 1975 that the plaintiffs were entitled to both a wider scope of damages and an

injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in p ...

halting flights at the airport between 9 PM and 7 AM. This was a landmark decision in Japanese environmental law as it set a precedent for polluters to be enjoined and to be required to pay damages to victims. However, the state then appealed to the Supreme Court of Japan, which deliberated for almost six years before ruling in 1981 that the High Court injunction was illegal (though the victims remained entitled to damages). By the mid-1970s, the airport was subject to extensive slot restrictions, with operations limited to 200 jets and 170 propeller aircraft per day, and no takeoffs or landings allowed after 9 PM. These restrictions led the major domestic airlines to adopt more widebody aircraft in ultra-high-density configurations on Itami routes. The introduction of these widebodies caused additional concern among locals who protested the increased pollution and greater dangers in the event of a crash.

Domestic era

Because of the political friction surrounding Itami, planners began work in the 1970s to relocate many of its flights to an offshore location. This plan led to the opening of Osaka's current international airport, referred to as

, in 1994 on an artificial island in Kansai region. There were originally plans to close Itami Airport following the opening of Kansai, but nearby communities opposed such a move for economic reasons, so Itami was retained as a domestic-only airport after Kansai opened in 1994. Itami has been used by international charters for state visits –

Air Force One Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and us ...

visited Itami in November 2005 and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao landed at Itami in April 2007 – and by Asiana Airlines charter flights to and from South Korea in late 2015.

All Nippon Airways , also known as ANA (''Ē-enu-ē'') or is an airline in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato ward of Tokyo. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had m ...

retains a large maintenance base at Itami which occasionally services aircraft ferried in from overseas without passengers, and some international cargo flights continue to use the airport as well. The policy of the Japanese government has been to limit operations at Itami in order to spur development at Kansai and Kobe. Commercial passenger aircraft with more than two engines were banned from Itami effective April 2006, although such aircraft may continue to make ferry flights to and from Itami for maintenance purposes. All Nippon Airways flew a 747 to Itami on January 12, 2014, the first 747 operation at the airport in eight years, for an open house event to commemorate the upcoming retirement of ANA's 747 fleet in March 2014. The government proposed changing Itami's status from first-class airport to second-class airport, which would saddle local governments with one-third of its operating costs; after protests from the surrounding local authorities, the national government withdrew this proposal. The government also proposed banning widebody aircraft from Itami, although this proposal was criticized as unrealistic given the volume of traffic there. In May 2011, the

Diet of Japan The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paral ...

passed legislation to form a new Kansai International Airport Corporation using the state's existing equity stake in Kansai Airport and its property holdings at Itami Airport. The move was aimed at offsetting Kansai Airport's debt burden. NKIAC started free shuttle bus service between Itami and Kansai for transfer passengers in order to further integrate the two as a single hub. Itami has also seen increased domestic passenger traffic in 2013 following the easing of flight restrictions, which was possible due to propeller aircraft being replaced by quieter regional jets; JAL was able to increase the frequency on its Itami-Fukuoka route from two flights to five flights daily, making the route more competitive with the Sanyō Shinkansen rail service. In September 2013, NKIAC announced that it would acquire Osaka Airport Terminal Co. for 27.8 billion yen, which an NKIAC official called the "last piece" of the integration of both airports' management. NKIAC plans to market Itami Airport to business travelers by touting its convenience for domestic business travel and improving its connectivity to

, while continuing to market Kansai Airport to leisure and international travelers. Following Typhoon Jebi, which resulted in the temporary closure of Kansai Airport in September 2018, operating hours at both Itami and Kobe were extended, and the government began considering permitting international service at all three Osaka area airports. Japan Airlines later announced that it would operate two special flights between Itami and Hong Kong in mid-October 2018. These would be the first scheduled international passenger flights to or from Itami in 24 years.

Plans

Itami is limited to domestic flights, and can only handle 18 landings per hour and 370 landings per day. , NKIAC is considering providing more leniency to the aforementioned restrictions through negotiations with local authorities, on the basis that advances in technology have allowed modern aircraft to be quieter than those in operation when the restrictions were imposed. NKIAC hopes to coordinate with local governments to increase the number of slots allowed during the day and to open additional slots during nighttime hours. Both Hyogo Prefecture and Itami City are supporters of expanded service at Itami, and established a formal coordination body in July 2013 to propose further reforms such as allowing international charter flights, and to engage in local efforts such as improving ground transportation and publicizing the airport's convenience. They planned to enlist the support of the other neighboring municipalities of Toyonaka, Takarazuka and Ikeda. On the other hand, the Japanese government has supported Kansai at Itami's expense, and current Osaka City mayor and former

governor

Toru Hashimoto TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Toru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan Toru Mardan Toru is a village and union council in Mardan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It has an altitude of 291 m (958 fe ...

has been a particularly vocal critic of the airport, arguing that the Chuo Shinkansen maglev line will make much of its domestic role irrelevant, and that its domestic functions should be transferred to Kansai in conjunction with upgraded high-speed access to Kansai from central Osaka. In 2009, Hashimoto proposed closing Itami and converting the site into an "International Campus Freedom City" operating in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

with 20,000 residents; the governor of Hyogo criticized the idea as "complete nonsense." Hashimoto later expressed support for Transport Minister

Seiji Maehara is a Japanese politician and was the leader of the Democratic Party from 1 September 2017 until its dissolution later that month.

's plan to maintain Itami with further restrictions on the size of aircraft. Kansai International Airport Corporation conducted a public tender to sell the operating rights for Kansai and Itami Airport in May 2015. Orix and Vinci SA were the sole bidder for the 45-year contract, at a price of around $18 billion. The new operating company will be formed around the end of 2015 and will be 80% owned by Orix and Vinci, with the remaining 20% owned by Kansai-based enterprises such as

Hankyu Hanshin Holdings is a Japanese multinational '' keiretsu'' holding company which owns Hankyu Corporation, the Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd., Toho Co., Ltd., and affiliate companies. On October 1, 2006, Hankyu Holdings changed its name to the present ...

and Panasonic.

Accidents and incidents

* 30 September 1957:

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960 ...

JA6011 of Japan Airlines suffered a number one engine failure on takeoff and stalled, crash landing in a rice paddy in Toyonaka. Seven were injured. *12 June 1961:

Vickers Viscount The Vickers Viscount is a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs. A design requirement from the Brabazon Committee, it entered service in 1953 and was the first turboprop-powered airliner. The Vi ...

G-APKJ of

was damaged beyond economic repair when the starboard undercarriage collapsed following a heavy landing. *26 October 1986: Thai Airways International Flight 620, an Airbus A300 from Don Mueang International Airport of Bangkok via Ninoy Aquino International Airport of Manila, was on approach to Osaka when an explosion caused rapid decompression in the rear fuselage. The aircraft control systems were damaged but the pilot accomplished an emergency landing at Osaka. 62 passengers were injured due to pitch oscillation following the decompression. The cause of the incident was believed to be the explosion of a hand grenade carried on board by a member of the Yamaguchi gumi and set off in the lavatory.

Airlines and destinations

Itami Airport has a single terminal building with 21 gates, divided into the "North Terminal" for JAL and Amakusa; and the "South Terminal" for ANA and IBEX. The departure and arrival zones of the two terminals are connected by a "Central Block" containing shops, restaurants and a hotel. The terminal is planned to be extensively renovated by August 2020 to include a new pier for additional aircraft, consolidated departures and arrivals facilities (including a single central security checkpoint with expanded capacity) and a new shopping and dining area. Work began in February 2016, and the renovated central area is scheduled to become operational in 2018.

Passenger

Statistics

Top destinations

^{''Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Civil Aviation Bureau 2014''}

Ground transportation

Rail

The only direct railway connection to the airport is the

Osaka Monorail The is a monorail system in northern Osaka Prefecture, Japan, operated by . At long, it is the second longest monorail system in the world after the Chongqing Monorail and the longest monorail system in Japan. It links the three campuses o ...

, which serves the northern suburbs of Osaka, connecting to the Hankyu Takarazuka Main Line at Hotarugaike Station and the

Kita-Osaka Kyuko Railway is a railway operator in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Its sole line, officially named the , operates as an extension of the Midōsuji Line of the Osaka Metro. The , established on 11 December 1967, is majorly owned by Hankyu. ''Kitakyu'', as it is ...

( Midōsuji Line) at Senri-Chuo Station. Several plans have been formulated for improving rail access to the airport.

Hankyu , trading as , is a Japanese private railway company that provides commuter and interurban service to the northern Kansai region and is one of the flagship properties of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., in turn part of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Gr ...

considered building a spur from the Takarazuka Line to the airport in the 1970s, but did not proceed with the project due to capacity constraints on the Takarazuka Line; Hankyu reportedly re-commenced studies of the project in 2017.

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and i ...

announced a plan to build a line to the airport from Itami around 1989 but never proceeded, due in part to the 2005 Amagasaki derailment and demand concerns following the opening of

Kobe Airport is an airport on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, south of Sannomiya StationAIS Japan
Hyogo Prefecture also considered building a light rail system from the airport to central Itami around 2007, but was unwilling to commit funding for the project due to profitability concerns. An April 2018 study by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism concluded that a 4 km, 70 billion yen spur line from

Sone The sone () is a unit of loudness, the subjective perception of sound pressure. The study of perceived loudness is included in the topic of psychoacoustics and employs methods of psychophysics. Doubling the perceived loudness doubles the sone v ...

to the airport, allowing one-stop express service to

Umeda is a major commercial, business, shopping and entertainment district in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, and the city's main northern railway terminus (Ōsaka Station, Umeda Station). The district's name means "plum field". History Umeda was historical ...

in around 20 minutes, would deliver a greater benefit-cost ratio than many other Japanese rail projects in terms of the number of passengers assisted, but would not be profitable at Hankyu's standard fare level and would require a significant surcharge in order to break even.

Road

Itami Airport is directly connected to the Hanshin Expressway Ikeda Route and is five minutes' drive from the Chugoku Expressway, making it possible to reach central Osaka by car or bus in 25 to 30 minutes, central Kobe in 40 minutes and central Kyoto in 55 minutes.

Mascot

Itami Airport's

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as ...

is named Sorayan, and was created for the airport's 75th anniversary. She is a round, humanoid airplane who wears a captain's hat, and speaks with an Osaka accent. The name was chosen from over 1,900 suggestions sent to airport operators, and is a combination of ''Sora'', Japanese for "''Sky''", and ''Yan'', a word used for emphasis in the local dialect. Her interests include roaming around the airport and fashion, as indicated by her collection of the silk scarves worn by Japanese flight attendants. She has made appearances with Kan-kun, the mascot of nearby Kansai International Airport.