Kamigoto Airport is a public aerodrome located on Kashiragashima Island (頭ヶ島), a smaller bridge-linked island just off the far east coast of Nakadorijima in the

Gotō Islands The are Japanese islands in the East China Sea, off the western coast of Kyūshū. They are part of Nagasaki Prefecture. Geography There are 140 islands, including five main ones: , , , , and . The group of islands runs approximately fr ...

Nagasaki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the northeast. N ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. The site is about northeast of Kamigoto town office, Shinkamigotō. The terminal was renovated in July 2015 and the airport remains active for emergency medical shuttles, but commercial passenger routes have been suspended for several years. Given the airport's lack of traffic and its unusually remote location, the runway has been used occasionally as a venue for 'dark sky' appreciation tours with tourists lying on the runway and staring at the cosmos above.

History

The airport opened in April 1981 (Showa 56) with a 800m long, 25m wide landing strip built along the entire north–south flattened top of Kashiragashima. Nagasaki Airways, rebranded after March 2001 as

Oriental Air Bridge is an airline headquartered on the grounds of Nagasaki Airport and in Ōmura, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It operates in southern Japan, offering charter services and a scheduled service between Nagasaki and Fukuoka. Its main base is Nagasaki Airp ...

, operated small passenger planes to

Fukuoka Airport , formerly known as Itazuke Air Base, is an international and domestic airport located east of Hakata Station in Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, Japan. Fukuoka Airport is the principal airport on the island of Kyushu and is the fourth busiest passenger ...

(until March 2004) and to

Nagasaki Airport is an international airport located west of the railway station in the city of Ōmura and north northeast of the Nagasaki railway station in the city of Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The airport terminal and runway 14/32 are on ...

(until March 2006). By this time, new fast ferry services, combined with a falling island populations and the ever unreliable weather conditions (strong winds often causing cancellations), led to the suspension of commercial passenger flights. The nearest active airport is Goto-Fukue Airport which continue to serve the Island. 2011 Nagasaki News article
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References

Airports in Japan Transport in Nagasaki Prefecture Buildings and structures in Nagasaki Prefecture {{Nagasaki-geo-stub