Shizuoka Airport to take off amid grim outlook
Written by Writer on Friday, November 14th, 2008
Shizuoka Airport to take off amid grim outlook
Takashi Yoshida / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
SHIZUOKA–The opening of Shizuoka Airport has been postponed for the third time, but even if it goes into service as scheduled, the facility will have to operate in the red for some time unless effective measures are devised.
The case highlights the severe situation of regional airports across the country.
The airport’s opening, which had been scheduled for March, will be delayed for up to four months. At this juncture, it is essential to clarify the source of the problems with regard to the construction and management of regional airports.
“I’m painfully aware of responsibility [for the delay],” Shizuoka Gov. Yoshinobu Ishikawa said Oct. 29 as he announced the postponement. The reason for the delay is the existence of about 150 trees that stand above the maximum height permitted by the Civil Aeronautics Law. The trees stand about 1.4 kilometers west of a planned runway, but were not discovered until September last year due to a surveying error.
As the trees’ owner refused to fell them, it has become necessary to undertake the additional work of shortening the planned 2,500-meter runway by 300 meters, at a cost of about 110 million yen. The additional work is necessary to ensure safe takeoffs and landings.
The airport’s opening had been delayed twice previously, due to such problems as difficulty in acquiring building sites.
This third postponement, which was announced five months ahead of the scheduled opening, sparked criticism among prefectural residents, some of whom termed it “pitiful.”
Shizuoka Airport straddles Shimada and Makinohara, two cities in central Shizuoka Prefecture, with the Tokaido Shinkansen line and Tomei Expressway accessible nearby.
Yet the facility’s situation is certain to become more serious after it opens. The airport’s profitability is at issue due to its location, sandwiched between the Tokyo metropolitan and Nagoya areas. Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Asiana Airlines of South Korea plan to operate four routes to and from Shizuoka Airport, but even if the four routes run at full capacity, passenger numbers are estimated at 720,000 a year, far less than the 1.06 million considered profitable by the prefectural government if only domestic routes are operated. This assures the airport will operate in the red after it opens.
It has long been said that construction of local airports is no longer necessary. Since fiscal 1967, airport construction and expansion programs have been formulated seven times. The Shizuoka Airport construction plan was incorporated in the sixth program, devised in fiscal 1991. If it opens, it will become the nation’s 98th airport.
Behind the progress in constructing local airports is the state’s policy of “building one airport in each prefecture” and special state budgeting. The total budget for the Shizuoka project is about 190 billion yen, but the 45 billion yen needed to build a runway and apron is being financed through this special account.
Local governments’ desire to build airports and Shinkansen lines has promoted new airports and expanded flight routes. But this has taken a toll on local governments as the financial burden on them increased as a result.
Yamagata Prefecture, the site of two airports, earned about 183 million yen in landing and airport usage fees in fiscal 2007. But its expenditures, including personnel and maintenance costs, came to about 521 million yen, saddling the prefectural government with a deficit of about 338 million yen.
“It takes a fiscal toll on us to operate the two airports,” a Yamagata prefectural government official said. “We’ll continue efforts to turn the operations into the black, but the situation surrounding local airports remains tough.”
Given spikes in aircraft fuel prices, domestic airlines have suspended and reduced flights on routes on which profitability is hard to secure. JAL has suspended flights on 12 domestic routes, including six linking Kansai Airport with local airports, since Nov. 1. ANA, for its part, has suspended operations on seven routes, centering on those linking Hokkaido or Kyushu with other regional areas, since April.
Local airports have been built indiscriminately across the country despite the limited distances between them. Amid constraints in local public finances and a harder economic environment, the days when airports could merely be built without any additional concerns have long gone. Shizuoka Prefecture already has been working on the possibility of foreign airlines providing Shanghai route flights to and from Shizuoka Airport.
Toshiyuki Uemura, associate professor at Kwansei University’s School of Economics, pointed out “the need for the Shizuoka prefectural government to make airport-related financial data public after the facility opens and for the government to rack its brains to work out measures to make effective use of the airport.”
Shizuoka Airport is often referred to as the nation’s last local airport. Whether it turns out to be a success will likely signify the fate of other local airports.
(Nov. 14, 2008)
