7 countries land Haneda slots ahead of Tokyo Olympics

Glad I'm foregoing a return until 2021. That airport is going to be one busy place!

They need to dump a mountain into the bay and expand Haneda so they can open a hundred more slots.

Narita is in the most useless location, with almost no connecting domestic flights.

Landing half of everyone coming to Japan at Narita reeks of a scam meant to feed hundreds of thousands of visitors into the train system with their wallets open rather than connect to a flight to Sendai or Tottori or wherever their final destination is. And if their final destination is Tokyo, Narita is basically halfway to Hokkaido.

how do you get half a slot? 13.5 for ANA and 11.5 for JAL.

and 40 million tourists?! that's going to cripple tokyo's and osaka's infrastructure.

Landing half of everyone coming to Japan at Narita reeks of a scam meant to feed hundreds of thousands of visitors into the train system with their wallets open

It's not as if the trains to the airport are that good either. Many people are fooled into taking those rip-off trains (the N'Ex isn't even that fast). And they've made sure those cheaper trains along the northern route are not frequent, like one per hour on the Hokuso line or that short JR stretch between the airport and Narita station.

Do countries get slots or airlines?  Weird.  and agree, Haneda should be massively expanded and the scam that is Narita left to wither and die (or to be the equivalent of a Gatwick or Stansted in London).

And after 2020, when the Olympics are over, what will happen? As traffic decreases, will the airlines just relinquish the slots?

Forget the slots! How will Tokyo accommodate 40 million travelers (at least 30 million for sure) through Haneda in a span of three (3) months is yet to see. Then we have the overhead sounds of nearly 100,000 flights thundering day and night. And not to mention the local transport: trains, taxis, buses... GOD help us all!

50 slots is not actually very much at all. Haneda is undergoing huge extensions (if you've been there recently) - Also Terminal 2 will be taking international flights from March - also with an extension. Really don't see what the fuss is all about. It's finally creating more competition at Haneda, whether we see prices come down of course is another thing - but since flight prices in real terms haven't really risen here in 30 odd years , don't see that being an issue either.

Landing half of everyone coming to Japan at Narita reeks of a scam meant to feed hundreds of thousands of visitors into the train system with their wallets open rather than connect to a flight to Sendai or Tottori or wherever their final destination is. And if their final destination is Tokyo, Narita is basically halfway to Hokkaido.

How is it a scam? Its a private business. You don't HAVE to fly to Narita. You choose to do it based on what airline you're choosing etc. There are very few large airports in the world that have good access, by nature of them being airports. Even Haneda isn't particularly great.

Forget the slots! How will Tokyo accommodate 40 million travelers (at least 30 million for sure) through Haneda in a span of three (3) months is yet to see. Then we have the overhead sounds of nearly 100,000 flights thundering day and night. And not to mention the local transport: trains, taxis, buses... GOD help us all!

NO, the number 40,000,000 million is for the entire country and not just through Haneda alone. For example, by that time nearly 10% of that air travel will come through Okinawa, which already is getting close to 3.5 million FOREIGN passengers a year. You also are not counting the close to another 10% of the total, coming into many areas of Japan, via cruise ships as well.

The 100,000 flights you mention is also over the course of a calendar year, or a little over 270 flights per day from international destinations alone. To put that into perspective, Naha airport in Okinawa receives over 150,000 flights per year, both international and domestic, and that is operating on one runway, soon to be two, in March of 2020.

This isn't all that big of a deal, and Haneda should be able to handle it! That's why it was expanded!

Half a slot means JAL and ANA share the slot. One day ANA, the following JAL, etc.

Apart from IOC hangers on, media and free loading sponsors etc etc are there really that many hordes of people going to fly into Tokyo for the Olympics, or is Japan massively overestimating? I mean your average Joe is not going to spend thousands to fly in and sweat it out in August in Japan when you can just watch it all at home on TV in comfort. Good thing though is that this event is accelerating the moving of many flights and slots away from Narita to Haneda which will be one positive legacy of the Games.

Transport from Haneda is going to need beefing up a fair bit.

The local Taxi companies are going to make a Killing - most people know you dont take a Cab from Narita as that'll set you back 200 US$, but a Cab from Haneda - 50-60$ isnt bad when compared to other Cities, and I guess the queues for Public transport will be off putting for many.