Originally Posted by Steve M

I would imagine that the operation of HND is such that if your flight arrives on time, that you can catch the last train or last bus. Otherwise, what would happen in practice to all of those passengers on those late flights every night?

But it does bring up a general question: Assume the the above is true. What happens when one of those late-arriving flights is behind schedule and lands, say, 90 minutes late for whatever reason? There could potentially be 250 passengers that have no way to get into town on public transport, and I suspect few of them were planning on staying at the airport hotel. Plus, you have all of the ground grew, Immigration officers, etc that must stay late to service that flight.

There must be contingency plans in place for when this happens, although I've never heard anyone describe them.

I once had a late-night arrival into HKG, around 1am, due to my flight from NRT being delayed by several hours due to thunderstorms. That was well past the time that the Airport Express train or the regular buses ran. I expected that I'd just have to take a cab, and hoped that someone had the wherewithal to coordinate with taxi services such that enough cabs were available. But much to my surprise, the airline had arranged chartered buses for everyone. Passengers were split up by which area of town they were going to, and then the buses provided door-to-door service for each passenger as needed, at no charge to the passengers.