Airport closure threatens tourism in Japan
TOKYO – Japan's tourism boom is at risk after its No. 1 gateway for Asian visitors was knocked out by the nation's most powerful typhoon in 25 years.
Kansai International Airport in Osaka, long seen as vulnerable to flooding in the event of a storm, remained closed on Thursday. The airport initially estimated that 3,000 travelers were stranded there, but Yoshiyuki Yamaya, chief executive of the airport's operator, said Thursday that about 8,000 people including employees were stranded. He said the evacuation of passengers by boat and bus from the artificial island where the airport is located was completed, although a few stayed behind to wait for flights to resume.
The bridge that links the island with the mainland was hit by a tanker that broke loose from its mooring in the storm, isolating the airport between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning local time. Travelers were stranded for the night with power cut off in some parts of the building and minimal Internet service.
Catryne Modena, 22, an undergraduate at Missouri State University who is studying in Japan, was planning to fly with a friend for a vacation in South Korea. They were having lunch at a plaza next to the terminal when the typhoon hit.
"The ceiling and windows started to break and fall into the middle of the plaza," she said. Then waves triggered by the typhoon started flooding the island, eventually inundating one of the runways.
"I grew up in Kansas in America in a landlocked state so this was crazy, " she said. "I am not a judge of this because I have never seen waves like this, but I knew that is not the water I wanted to be in."
Inside the airport, "it was hot, it was humid, it felt like the apocalypse," said Ms. Modena, who waited seven hours Wednesday for a bus that took her to a ferry headed for the mainland.
Experts had long pointed out the risk of flooding at the airport, which opened on Sept. 4, 1994 – exactly 24 years before the typhoon. After some roads on the island were washed out by storms in 2004, the airport built up the sea walls to five meters (16.5 feet) above sea level, but it wasn't enough to hold back the storm surge.
"We were hit by waves that were higher than expected. In addition to the waves, there was also impact from strong winds," an airport spokeswoman said.
The weather was sunny on Wednesday and the floodwaters had largely receded from the runway, but officials were still assessing flood damage to the airport buildings and the damage to the bridge, where one section of roadway was dislodged by the impact of the tanker. Some lanes on the bridge remained passable.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday Kansai International will partially reopen Friday. "The airport will resume operation for domestic flights by the end of tomorrow (Friday) and restart international flights as soon as it is ready."
The company operating the airport facilities is 40%-owned by Japan's Orix Corp. and 40% by a unit of Vinci SA of France, with other investors holding the remainder.
An Orix spokeswoman said there was no damage estimate yet but the operating company was expected to shoulder up to ¥10 billion ($90 million), which would be covered by insurance. Any additional costs would be covered by the government-controlled company that owns the facility, she said.
"The shutdown of Kansai International will give a huge blow to tourism in Osaka," said Hiroaki Konishi, a director of Freeplus, Inc., a Japanese tour operator. Although airports in Tokyo and Nagoya could serve as substitutes, Mr. Konishi said tourists may shun Kansai International, even after it reopens, because of the images of the storm.
The Kansai region, which includes Osaka, Kobe and the ancient capital of Kyoto, is Japan's second-biggest population center after the region around Tokyo.
With about 28 million domestic and international passengers annually, Kansai International is Japan's thirdbusiest airport after Narita and Haneda airports in the Tokyo region, and it is the most popular gateway for Asian tourists. That is largely thanks to a terminal for low-cost carriers opened in 2012.
Of Japan's 23.3 million Asian tourists who visited Japan in 2017, 6.6 million entered through Kansai International, Ministry of Justice data showed.
Inbound tourists spent around ¥1 trillion ($9 billion) in the Kansai region last year and pushed up growth by 1%, said Yoshihisa Inada of the Asia Pacific Institute of Research, an Osaka think tank.
"It is vulnerable to have only one international airport in the region. But this provides a good opportunity to have more vigorous discussions about making use of nearby airports including Itami and Kobe airports" which mainly handle domestic flights, Mr. Inada said. (WSJ)