This year I went thought old stuff in storage and found a lot pictures (35 mm film) I took in the past. I like photography in pure personal hobby level. I never bothered to learn concepts and tecchniques of photography, I just take pictures in the way I like. I did spend all my summer job money to buy Pentax LX, damn good camara and still works!



For those interested, lenses are 28 mm, 50 mm, and 80 - 200 mm zoom. I sure took a lot of pictures. I decided to buy a negative scanner and scan all those pictures to digital. This is all for personal memory, not looking for a quality. I had few pictures I took at Narita and thought this place is a nice place to post those. Please understand that it is 35 mm pictures took by non-professional and scanned to digital in also non-professional way.

Narita 1980s

Kaisei Skyliner, original version.




This was the first Skyliner which ran between 1973 - 1990. NRT did not open till 1978, but the original Skyliner started to run on 1973. The original plan was NRT to open on 1972 but opening was delayed till 1978. Keisei had new Skyliner trains made and was ready to start Skyliner service to NRT on 1972. On 1973 Keisei started few non-stop service between Ueno and Narita using Sklyliner train, rather than having Skyliner trains sitting at a train yard doing nothing and waiting for NRT to open, back then it sure felt like NRT will never open.

When NRT finally opened in 1978 Keisei Narita Airport station was today's Higashi Narita station, underground station located between Termianl 1 and Termianl 2, free intra terminal bus stops at Higashi Narita station. The current Narita Airport station below Terminal 1 existed at the current location since opening of NRT in 1978, but Keisei could not use the station below Termianl1 back then. The station below Termianl1 was built for Narita Shinkansen.and JR's predesessor JNR which was a government entity did not allow Keisei to use the station below Terminal 1. The plan for Narita Shinkansen was terminated and for a long time the station below Terminal 1 was unused. .JNR was privetized on 1987 and became JR, then the talk started about finally make use out of the station below Terminal 1. Finally Keisei was allowed to serve directly to the terminal along with JR and the station below Termianl 1 finally opened for passenger service in 1991.

Back to NRT in '80s. Back then only Termianl 1 existed so the terminal building was not called Termianl 1. It was simply called North Wing and South Wing. Below is picture of check-in area of South Wing back in '80s.


Departure board of South Wing in '80s.


BA (British Airways) served JNB (Johannesburgh, South Africa) from NRT. Flight number changed at HKG (Kai Tak back then) but was through aircraft service and I think the route was like NRT-HKG-CMB-SEZ-JNB. Japanese companies invested a lot in South Africa and there was enough demand between Japan and South Africa. However, Japan and South African did not have an official diplomatic relation till 1992 when it was re-established, Japan and South Africa did have diplomatic relation but was terminated during WW II. When BA flew LHR-ANC-NRT-HKG-CMB-SEZ-JNB, BA had to change flight number at HKG because there was no bilateral air treaty between Japan and South Africa. BA flew same aircraft from LHR to JNB via ANC, NRT, HKG, CMB, SEZ for sure it was the longest route for BA. Obviously JL could not fly to South Africa because Japan did not have an air treaty with South Africa.

Also see CP Air (CP), I miss CP Air, that was a fine airline. VARIG (RG) flew from Brazil via LAX. Then see all those Northwest Orient (NW) and PanAm (PA) with PA 1 and PA 2, Round the World flight.

Obviously, JL was the major occupant of NRT, using North Wing, 747 heaven back then.




It was 747 all over the place, but in '80s JL operated 727-100 also. I am not sure if JL had 727-100 flight out of NRT, but I know back in '80s JL operated KIJ (Niigata) - KHB (Khabarovsk, USSR back then) and KMQ (Komatsu) - SEL (Gimpo back then) by 727-100. It was not a daily flight. 727-100 was based at NRT. Aircraft was serviced and catered at NRT, with FAs on board aircraft was ferried to KIJ and KMQ prospectoively to do KHB and SEL flights.

Another big one at NRT was PanAm.




PanAm 747-100/200, 747SP which flew NRT-JFK non-stop, and see the tail on the second picture where PanAm operated 727-200 out of NRT. I think PanAm used 727-200 on NRT-ITM feeder flight but not sure what other routes PanAm used 727-200 out of NRT.

Another big guys at NRT was Northwest Orient. I liked this Northwest Orient liverly best.




What I remember is that service of Northwest Orient was nothing to write home about...

Some other at NRT... Korean Air Lines and Cathay Pacific in old color.


Some 707, Korean Air Lines and VARIG cargo.




Old color SAS DC-10-30


CAAC, before Air China. 747SP and Trident




Will continue to '90s and early 2000s at NRT.