Originally Posted by rjque
My friends also tell me that expanding Haneda was an option but NRT was chosen purely based on political corruption. I have no idea if any of this is true, but expanding Haneda would have certainly been a much more convenient option for travelers than creating this new airport in the middle of nowhere.
Expanding Haneda certainly is an option -- and it's happening right now. Haneda's new Terminal 2 was just opened in December, construction of the third runway is under way and a new Terminal 3 for international flights is likely to be built before the end of the decade.
Aside from mere corruption, there was also a major bureaucratic catfights between Chiba (NRT) and Kanagawa (HND) prefectures over international flight rights. But the logjam finally broke in HND's favor a few years ago, with regular 'scheduled charter' flights to GMP (Seoul) and lots more to follow when/if Terminal 3 gets the formal go-ahead.