Japan: Major Airports

If you're heading to Japan you now have almost 100 airports to choose from. Lucky number 98 opened March 12, 2010 in Ibaraki. Unfortunately the passenger limit on the plane was cut in half.

Getting to Japan by air is not difficult thanks to the fact that there are flights to the country’s international airports from most major cities on the planet. The majority of flights arrive in Tokyo; some also fly into one of the other international airports. These are Nagoya, Niigata and Osaka on the island of Honshu, Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto and Nagasaki on Kyushu, Naha on Okinawa and Sapporo on Hokkaido.

The main airlines serving Japan are numerous. Japan Airlines (JAL) operates the most flights in and out of the country. It has direct connections between Tokyo or Osaka to Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Vancouver in North America as well as numerous destinations in the UK, Australia and New Zealand!

- Japanese Airlines plane

• Narita or The New Tokyo International Airport is located about forty miles north of the city center but several buses and shuttles leave from all terminals and take about an hour to reach the city. You can buy tickets for all services inside each of the terminals.

• Kansai International is about thirty miles south of Osaka and again there are regular bus services into the city centre and they take about thirty minutes to get there.

• Fukuoka International is twenty minutes away from the city of the same name and Nagoya International lies six miles north of the city.

Narita Airport.

There are numerous sites that offer flight information for every airport in Japan. Make sure to be pro-active and buy your tickets well in advance.