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COVER STORY: The Spirit of Hospitality

Caption: The new international terminal at Haneda Aiport brings Tokyo within easier reach of cities around the world.
Credit: MASATOSHI SAKAMOTO

Arrivals and Departures

Japanese


Edo Market Place in Haneda Airport recreates the flavor of an Edo-period (1603–1867) town.
Credit: MASATOSHI SAKAMOTO
In October 2010, Tokyo International Airport, familiarly known as Haneda Airport, began operating regularly scheduled international flights.

The main attraction of Haneda Airport is its ease of access, approximately thirty minutes from the center of the capital. In addition, the flow line inside the building has been configured out of consideration for travelers carrying large pieces of luggage, with the walkway from the ticket gates of the Tokyo Monorail International Terminal Station to the departure lobby completely level and taking less than one minute to traverse.

Also arousing interest inside the terminal is the opening of Edo Market Place, a commercial facility named after the former name of Tokyo and modeled after a typical Edo-period street. In Edo Market Place, there are restaurants serving Japanese food such as tonkatsu (pork cutlets), sukiyaki and sushi, as well as French and Chinese restaurants. There are also souvenir shops, for example, where you can buy goods commended in the Japan Tourism Agency's Japanese Souvenir Contest and T-shirts bearing designs featuring kanji characters and the hiragana syllabary.

In Haneda Airport, the signage inside the building is written in four languages: Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese. Staff working at the Information Counters also speak these four languages.

Meanwhile, in October 2010 it was decided to expand the number of annual slots for Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture, Japan's key international airport, from the current 220,000 to 300,000 in 2014. This stems from the government's policy of utilizing both Haneda and Narita Airports as an integrated metropolitan area airport. Haneda, appealing for its ease of access; Narita, proud of the wealth of cities it serves and its high numbers of departures and arrivals.

Tokyo's air travel looks set to become more and more convenient.

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