KPT

I think the trend of NRT being the tourist airport and HND being more heavily used by locals, particularly those in the south and south west bits of Tokyo, is going to continue. Fine with me, given how noisy some NRT pax tend to be...

I'm happy that HND is adding more flights, and that people still have the option to go to NRT. I personally would never choose NRT over HND mostly because I'm not paying for my tickets, or the cab rides (to counter the last post).

As for domestic travel, it's the shinkansen or HND.

maverickar15

I flew from SFO to HND first time last month (vs. flying to NRT in all my past flights) and I prefer HND. The train ride time from airport to central Tokyo maybe only ~20 minutes less with HND vs NRT but it looked like there were more train options from HND (more frequent express lines, etc). So if you take into account of waiting for the "right" train then HND should easily save you 30+ minutes or more.

It will probably depend on where your hotel is but if that lies in the path of Asakusa line then it really is a no-brainer to ride from HND.

beckoa

I'll have to remember this

Glad that NRT is destined to expand...finally.

WorldLux

Let's wait with that until the expansion is a done job. The history of NRT shows how difficult building/expanding an airport can get.

A major success for NRT would be to offer acceptable compensation for the remaining enclaves and extend the shorter runway to the originally planned length.

AlwaysAisle

All parties involved, including nine local towns surrounding NRT, have came to agreement on extending operating hour of NRT till 12 midnight. Starting end of October this year (when winter schedule kicks in for international flights) flights will able to take off and land till 12 midnight at NRT.

wolfpacktrojan

Hopefully JR East and Keisei will extend their hours to accomodate passengers arriving on those late flights, as it doesn't look like they are on board yet.

AlwaysAisle

Access to NRT on very late evening and very early morning is already a topic for NRT, where past few years LCCs has started to use NRT for domestic operation. As in air fares in Europe and the U.S., often the cheapest air fare for LCCs operating out of NRT is on the first flight of the day but at this moment there are very limited option of getting to NRT that early in the morning from Tokyo. A lot of passengers choose to stay overnight at NRT terminal from a night before to catch the first LCC flight of the day. NRT actually has a sleeping area for such passengers on 2nd fl. of Terminal 2 north side, carpeted area where people can sleep overnight on a floor. NRT actually says people can sleep at food court area at Terminal 3 overnight after food stands close, encourage to make use out of chairs and tables there. Yoshinoya opened 24 hrs. store at 2nd fl. of Terminal 2 before passport control expecting demand from people sleeping overnight at the terminal, along with Seven Eleven convenience store on basement of Terminal 2 near train station is open 24 hrs. for the same reason. There will be more need for access option from/to NRT in very late evening and very early morning. But still that early in the morning or late in the evening there really is no transportation at Tokyo except for taxi at that time of the day. Access from/to NRT is not the only topic need to be solved.

5khours

I think it would help if they could speed up access as well. A high speed train would be very expensive, but there's probably a few things they could that would not cost much including upgrading track in a few places, automatic barriers at some stations to allow faster transit when not stopping, etc. The could probably cut 20 to 30 minutes off current times.

abraxis

evergrn

With expanded hours, it'd be great if they could start doing some 11p-12a departures to N.America. That would allow the last day in Jpn to be essentially a full day and still return to US at a decent time. However, I'm not very hopeful, because none of the late night TPAC departures from HND survived beyond the advent of the daytime HND slots.

Outside of that, I wish they'd increase capacity by speeding up the facility improvement/expansion rather than merely expanding hours. I'd love to see more ANA/JAL domestic flights to connect to, but keeping the airport open later will not help with that. Int'l to domestic transit is so much easier at NRT than HND, and I hate NRT-HND transit.

NRT is 40min to Nippori. Compare that to other airport-city times: HKG 25min; SIN 40+min; CDG ~30min; SFO 30+min. It's really not bad, and plus the train ride is comfortable. I think the only other thing that might be useful is if JR was able to figure out a way to shave ~10min off the current NEx travel time to Tokyo Sta. But overall I'm satisfied with NRT's accessibility.

HND certainly has certain advantages, but I still favor NRT over HND for international departures and arrivals. Baggage handling (at least for NH) seems to be more efficient, there are more lounges, more extensive landside services (eg, more takuhai counters so you don't wait 15+min in line like you would at HND), more comfortable trains with reserved seating.

kaka

joejones

HND already has quite a few evening departures to North America. Given that you generally only need to show up at HND about an hour before your flight, you can easily leave a meeting in Tokyo at 5 pm and catch AA/DL/NH to LAX, AC to YYZ, JL to SFO or NH to YVR. The harder part is getting from the US to Japan without blowing the better part of two whole calendar days -- the only options at present are to take NH's LAX-HND or MEX-NRT flights, or connect in Europe.

evergrn

I was talking about really late flights, though. Like departing close to midnight. I've been flying that 9.45p/10p YVR flight on a regular basis, but I believe all the other flights you list depart before 8pm. To catch a 7.30-8pm flight, I have to leave home before 3.30pm. That is hardly a full day, considering normal waking hours are like 7a-11p. When I used to take flights back to US that departed past midnight, I could have stay with my folks till past dinner or even do a day trip to Kofu on the last day.

I think I've seen you express the same sentiment as me elsewhere on FT regarding desire for more red-eye options to Jpn. Whether you're flying for business or flying with small kids, the advantages of red-eye TPAC flights are enormous. Yet the general public seems to prefer to fly during daytime to Jpn (DL's daytime SEA-NRT flight always full, but their 9.45pm SEA-HND flight was always half-empty at least). I don't understand this. I wonder if this is because many Jpm business travelers prefer to use up work hours instead of personal time for flying. CX and Taiwanese carriers make it work with their red-eyes. CX's red-eye from YVR always seems packed. I have taken EVA's red-eye to Jpn quite a few times.

joejones

Yeah, if you're coming from the sticks, HND-LAX on NH is kind of the only option.

Korean and Chinese airlines also do quite a few westbound red-eyes. Japan is, for whatever reason, the outlier in East Asia.

RichardInSF

Seems to me that if JR double-tracked the section just outside NRT then the N"Ex bound for Tokyo wouldn't have to stop and wait on every damn trip. That would save a few minutes only but psychologically it would seem like a real improvement, at least to me.