Kobe Airport
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Kobe Airport (Japanese: 神戸空港 Kōbe Kūkō) is an airport currently under construction on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, Japan. The airport will have one 2500-meter runway and is scheduled to open in March 2006. It will primarily handle domestic flights, but will also accommodate international charter flights. [1] (http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=feature&id=736)
When it is completed, Kobe Airport will be connected to Sannomiya Station in central Kobe by an extension of the existing Port Island light rail system. Travel time to Sannomiya will be about sixteen minutes.
Controversy
The project has been extremely controversial, since the estimated pricetag is over 1 trillion yen (US $8.7 billion), and the Kobe municipality is already the worst-indebted in the country with outstanding debts of over ¥3 trillion. This site is originally proposed to be one of the site for the then to be built Kansai International Airport, but the Kobe municipality rejected it stating it is too close to the city. However, soon after that, the Kobe municipality decided to fund the construction of another airport by themself despite much objection from the central government, as the airport will face stiff competition from nearby Osaka International Airport and the larger but more distant Kansai International Airport, the latter of which is already suffering from overcapacity and hemorrhaging money. A citizen group gathered over 300,000 signatures (in a city of 1.5 million) to stop the project, but to no avail.
All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have both announced plans to replace portions of their widebody fleet with a larger number of mid-size aircraft, in part because of a need to fill the excess number of flight slots created by Kobe Airport's construction. [2] (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20041001a2.htm)
The Supporters
Despite the controversy, many say that the Kobe Airport may actually be beneficial to the Kansai region. The City of Itami is proposing to ban the take-off and landing of Boeing 747 aircraft at Osaka International due to the large amount of noise pollution to the surrounding neighbourhood. If this does take effect, then more smaller jets are needed, thus the need for more timeslots.
Other supporters include the frequent flyers in the region and surrounding areas. The third airport can mean increased competition and lower airfares. People in the surrounding regions (Shikoku, Awaji Island etc.) can now have a closer airport while access to Kansai may be limited. Since the ferry from Tokushima to Kansai Airport was discontinued, travellers have had to rely on alternate means of transportation including a bus to Kansai Airport, which takes an hour longer, or to use the local Tokushima airport, which is limited in schedules.