Ibaraki Airport to open with no domestic flights
Yomiuri --Dec. 17, 2009
With the prefectural government unable to persuade financially strapped domestic airlines to fly new routes, Ibaraki Airport is expected to begin operations in March with no domestic flights and just one daily international round trip flight to Seoul, it was learned Wednesday. The airport is located in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture, about 80 kilometers northeast of central Tokyo...more...
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[SIZE="3"]But hey, it does have FREE PARKING, wo0T![/SIZE][/INDENT]

Taro Toporific wrote:Ibaraki Airport to open with no domestic flights
Yomiuri --Dec. 17, 2009
With the prefectural government unable to persuade financially strapped domestic airlines to fly new routes, Ibaraki Airport is expected to begin operations in March with no domestic flights and just one daily international round trip flight to Seoul, it was learned Wednesday. The airport is located in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture, about 80 kilometers northeast of central Tokyo...more...
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[SIZE="3"]But hey, it does have FREE PARKING, wo0T![/SIZE][/INDENT]

How does one go about getting a job there? You get airport pay and can do nothing for six hours of your shift.

Taro Toporific wrote:But hey, it does have FREE PARKING, wo0T!

my dog has flea parking too...

what?!

bong!

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, some twenty years ago. Narita Airport, the normal gateway to Tokyo for international travelers, was and still is perpetually overcrowded, inconveniently located an hour and a half from city center, and unable to build needed new runaways due to a dispute with local farmers in the Narita area. The Japanese economy was leading the world and tourism to Japan seemed to know no limits.
Narita Airport

Unfortunately, the world and Japan have changed a lot in the time it took to get Ibaraki Airport from the planning stages to its opening on March 11, 2010. It opened with much fanfare, assorted local and national officials, a "theme character", and one daily flight to Seoul, Korea.

http://thesop.org/story/world/2010/03/12/japans-airport-to-nowhere.php

Flying domestically in Japan really doesn't make economic sense unless you're flying from one end of the country to the other, or between places that don't have fast rail access. For example, the Shinkansen fare from Sendai to Nagoya (quick, easy change from the Tohoku Shinkansen to the Tokaido Shinkansen at Tokyo) is about 18,000 yen. The regular air fare from Sendai to Nagoya (Chubu airport, which is still a train ride from the city center) is around 30,000 yen, and the time/hassle difference is nowhere near enough to make flying worthwhile. Not appealing at all.

It seems that the real problem behind this are the airport administration companies, which are just another "amakudari" destination for ex-government fat cats to get fatter at. The airlines and airports are losing money by the bushel, while the airport administration companies are comfortably in the black. Something is definitely wrong with that picture. So it looks like another case of an amakudari parasite system sucking the life out of vital infrastructure. In short, fucking up the country out of pure greed.

Yokohammer wrote:It seems that the real problem behind this are the airport administration companies, which are just another "amakudari" destination for ex-government fat cats to get fatter at. The airlines and airports are losing money by the bushel, while the airport administration companies are comfortably in the black. Something is definitely wrong with that picture. So it looks like another case of an amakudari parasite system sucking the life out of vital infrastructure. In short, fucking up the country out of pure greed.

It's amazing that people let this happen. How much of this is passed onto tax payers? All of it, I suspect.

Behan wrote:How much of this is passed onto tax payers? All of it, I suspect.

A good healthy chunk of it, I'm sure. In one form or another, including inflated air fares.

And then when an airline can't stand the strain and collapses (JAL, f'rinstance), the taxpayer gets stuck with the burden of rebuilding the airline while the parasites continue to draw salaries and skip from company to company, receiving retirement packages each time.*

Very fucked up.

* Yes, the real value in amakudari is not just a cushy job with a significant paycheck. These guys spend a bit of time in one place, then quit and move on to the next, receiving a full "taishokukin" package each time. They can even get re-hired by a company they already quit from and repeat the entire process again. It is unbelievable. Compare that to Joe Salaryman, who only gets one retirement payment per lifetime.

Debito's got a blog entry in which he complains about buying a ticket to JR Hanamaki Kuukou Eki only to find that the station is 4 km from the actual kuukou. Because he ended up having to cab it for that last 4 km, he writes, "I was also 1240 yen cab ride poorer for the experience, but sometimes one has to pay to get interesting blog entries." I dunno, but 1240 yen is pretty cheap for an interesting J-blog entry. I don't think you can swing a dead cat for 1240 yen around here, even in these days of de-fu-re.

Finally, The Big D asks, "What kind of a government and infrastructure [sic] builds an airport, and then makes it nearly impossible for basic public transport to service it?"

-catone
-ahem, LAX