, , also branded as ,The phrase "''pai nu''" comes from the Yaeyama language. is a regional airport located in the Shiraho district of Ishigaki,

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest cit ...

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 airport is located near the eastern coast of

Ishigaki Island , also known as ''Ishigakijima'', is a Japanese island south-west of Okinawa Hontō and the second-largest island of the Yaeyama Island group, behind Iriomote Island. It is located approximately south-west of Okinawa Hontō. It is within the ...

. It connects the island to major cities in Japan as well as destinations throughout

and the

Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa P ...

. New Ishigaki Airport was built to replace Ishigaki Airport, which with a shorter runway of only , could not accommodate larger jets. Operations at ldIshigaki Airport ceased at midnight on March 6, 2013, and New Ishigaki Airport opened on March 7, 2013.

Location

New Ishigaki Airport is located on the eastern shore of Ishigaki Island (). The island is located approximately southwest of

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...

. The Yaeyama Islands were traditionally controlled from the southern district of the island, and remains the chief island of the group. The airport serves as a transportation hub for the surrounding Miyako,

Yonaguni , one of the Yaeyama Islands, is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, lying from the east coast of Taiwan, between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean proper. The island is administered as the town of Yonaguni, Yaeyama Gun, O ...

Hateruma Hateruma (波照間島; ''Hateruma-jima''; Yaeyama: ''Patirooma'', Hateruma dialect: ''Besїma'' "our island", Okinawan: ''Hatiruma'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Patara'') is an island in the Yaeyama District of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. It is t ...

, and Tarama islands. The airport additionally connects Ishigaki to

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 ...

(via

Haneda Airport , officially , and sometimes called as Tokyo Haneda Airport or Haneda International Airport , is one of two international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other one being Narita International Airport (NRT). It serves as the primary ...

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most po ...

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 ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...

, and

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since anc ...

. Ishigaki is only a 40-minute flight from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE) in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

. Ishigaki currently hosts seasonal flights to Taiwan. New Ishigaki Airport sits above sea level in the Shiraho district of Ishigaki. The airport is located approximately 30 minutes by car from central Ishigaki City (i.e., Ishigaki Harbor).

Facilities

New Ishigaki Airport covers . It consists of a single runway, in length and in width. The airport has a single terminal with a total floor space of . The first floor of the terminal is used for check-in and baggage claim. The second floor is used as an entrance, the third floor for facilities management, and the fourth floor as an observation deck. New Ishigaki Airport operates 11 hours a day, between 8 am and 7 pm.

Administration

Under the Airport Law of 1956 New Ishigaki Airport was originally classified as a Regional Airport (the old airport was classified as Third Class airport). According to a September 4, 2013, front-page article in the Yaeyama Mainichi Shinbun (one of the newspapers in Ishigaki), the airport is now classified as an International Airport, which means that Taiwanese carriers will change from a system of providing what they call "regular charter flights" to offering regular scheduled flights.http://www.y-mainichi.co.jp:8000/news/23215/ きょうから定期便に　正式な国際空港へ Yaeyama Mainichi Shinbun (in Japanese) New Ishigaki Airport was constructed by government of Okinawa Prefecture at a cost of 45.1 trillion yen and is now owned and operated by the City of Ishigaki. The airport has 24 tenants, mainly locally operated restaurants and souvenir shops.

History

New Ishigaki Airport replaces Ishigaki Airport, which was originally built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as a military airstrip 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 ...

.Some sources date the completion of the military airstrip to 1942, others to 1943. Korean laborers were used for the construction of the military airstrip. The airstrip was built in the Maezato and Ōhama districts of Ishigaki, and opened in September 1942. The airstrip was used for the deployment of kamikaze units to attack American ships anchored off Okinawa Island during the

Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...

. After World War II the airstrip was repaired, and eventually converted to joint civilian/military use in 1956, and commercial flights to Ishigaki began on June 16 of that year. The new airport was built to replace Ishigaki Airport, which had a runway of only , and could generally accommodate small jets, typically a 150-passenger

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

. The initial plan called for an airport to be built on extensive landfill off the eastern shore of the island in the Shiraho district. Plans for a new airport on the Ishigaki Island date back to 1979. Residents of Shiraho opposed the construction of New Ishigaki Airport, among other reasons, due to concerns about the destruction of the Shiraho Coral Reef. The reef is home to over 120 species of coral, and is one of the most diverse coral reefs in Japan, and is named as one of the "Global 200" coral reefs by the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the W ...

. The Shiraho district and its reef is protected as part of Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park (), which covers both the land and marine areas of much of the Yaeyama Islands. The Shiraho reef is particularly vulnerable to destruction by

red clay Ultisols, commonly known as red clay soils, are one of twelve soil orders in the United States Department of Agriculture soil taxonomy. The word "Ultisol" is derived from "ultimate", because Ultisols were seen as the ultimate product of continu ...

discharged from small rivers and other discharge from Ishigaki Island. This plan was abandoned in 1989. A second plan, which was ultimately adopted, called for the airport to be built inland from the coast, using both agricultural land and excavating a section from Karadake, a prominent hill on the relatively flat landscape of Ishigaki Island. Construction on the new airport started in 2006 with the excavation of Karadake. 270,000 ha² of soil from Karadake were removed, significantly changing the appearance of the landscape of Shiraho. The excavation of Karadake posed a continuing threat to the Shiraho coral reef. The hill is composed of red clay, and discharge of soil from the excavation presented a serious threat of destruction of the reef. Human remains, now known as the Shiraho Saonetabaru Cave Ruins, were discovered at the site shortly after construction began on the airport. Bones from human heads, feet, arms were found and dated to the

Paleolithic Age The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος '' lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

, and are approximately 24,000 years old. The remains may be the oldest human remains found in Japan. Work at the archaeological site ended with the opening of the airport in 2013. As a promotion prior to the opening of the airport and the locally produced Ishigaki beef, a giant

kebab Kebab (, ; ar, كباب, link=no, Latn, ar, kabāb, ; tr, kebap, link=no, ) or kabob (North American) is a type of cooked meat dish that originates from cuisines of the Middle East. Many variants of the category are popular around the wor ...

was constructed on the construction area of the new airport. Assembly of the kebab required the effort of 1,700 residents and tourists, and ultimately measured in length. The kebab was certified a

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

, beating out the former record-holder constructed in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

. New Ishigaki Airport is designated a under the Airport Law of Japan. An opening ceremony for the airport was held on March 2, 2013. Operations at Ishigaki Airport ceased at midnight on March 6, 2013, and airport equipment such as luggage carts and handling equipment were trucked across the island overnight. New Ishigaki Airport officially started operations at 12 a.m., March 7, 2013.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Statistics

Ground Transportation

New Ishigaki Airport is connected to other areas of Ishigaki Island by bus and taxi. Ishigaki is served by the Azuma Bus Company. Additionally, a rental car service is available at the airport. The airport sits along Okinawa Prefectural Route 39, which crosses the eastern and southern coast of the island.

Notes

References

External links

New Ishigaki Airport
* {{Authority control Airports in Okinawa Airports established in 2013 2013 establishments in Japan Yaeyama Islands Transport in Okinawa Prefecture Buildings and structures in Okinawa Prefecture