Comments 51 to 53 of 53
Also known as New Tokyo International
This is where I arrived to start my three years in Japan in September 1996. The airport had only the originak runway (the one in the lower partof the photo) then. the second, parallel runway had been slated to be built for nearly 20 years but delayed by farmers in the area who din't want to sell their land. At times the protests against airport expansion reached the point of people flying tethered balloons in the path of landing aircraft ... Japan is an "interesting" country to do large construction projects.
In addition to taking many flights in and out of Narita I had the opportunity to work "inside" Narita a number of times. My organization had a contracted "greeting" facility for US forces entering Japan in Terminal 1 which we had to move several times die to construction and it was a learning experience to see what goes on behind the normally closed doors to make an airport of this size actually operate.
My Home for Three Years
I was the communications planner/program manager at Yokota for the years 1996 through 1999. Among the neat aviation-related things I got to do were the installation and commissioning of the runway 18 ILS ... a ssytem we physically removed from Minot AFB Montana, shipped across the pacific and put back to good use at Yokota. Mnay civilian plots have been through Yokota as a significant part of its traffic is contract passenger and cargo flights and I recall a number of times when I was there that Northwest used it to land when weather gave them a problem at Narita
One of Northwest's Frequent Stopovers
🔗 Sun, 29 Jul 2007
— @XingR at Kansai International Airport, Japan
I've been here several times going to and from the Philippines. Northwest likes to use it rather than Narita because of traffic and economic reasons. (Sometimes known by the alternative nickname of "Route 66) See some of my acerbic comments on inadequate southern California airports. When the Japanese don't have a good place for an airport, they make one ... in the US we wring our hands for years on end and often do nothing.