International Flights To/From Japan
 

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism published winter 2023 international flight survey to/from Japan.

There were 4865.5 international flights per week, which is about 90% of pre-pandemic level. Resumption of international flights to/from Japan continued and notable mention of flight resumption during 2023 winter were, ANA NRT-PER, Air Tahiti Nui NRT-PTT, Biman Bangladesh NRT-DAC, and Egypt Air NRT-CAI.

Japanese airlines accounted for 23.9% and non-Japanese airlines accounted for 76.1% of international flights to/from Japan.

International flights by airports:
NRT: 33.6%
KIX: 24.3%
HND: 20.2%
FUK: 8.1%
NGO: 5.4%
CTS: 2.5%
OKA: 2.5%

The survey mentioned that Nagoya is struggling little to bring back international flights. Example was the only non-stop U.S. mainland flight from Nagoya by Delta. Delta resumed with once a week flight, then increased to thrice weekly flight. But sited the slow recovery of demand at NGO and Delta terminated NGO flight.

International flights to/from Japan by countries:
South Korea: 24.27%
China: 16.50%
Taiwan: 11.74%
Mainland U.S.: 9.15%
Hong Kong: 8.94%
Thailand: 4.01%
Philippines: 3.71%
Vietnam: 3.66%
Hawaii/Guam: 3.14%
Singapore: 3.12%
Malaysia: 1.41%
Australia: 1.33%
Germany: 1.13%
Indonesia: 0.83%
U.K.: 0.73%
Canada: 0.73%
UAE: 0.72%

Interesting that KIX is #2! It's my impression that they have really increased international flights to Asia in the past few years.

It's sort of like JFK vs. LGA -- HND services so many domestic flights that the percentages get skewed -- I wonder what the actual numbers were....

The percentage is the ratio number of international flights at that specific airport to the total number of international flights to/from Japan. The percentage directly reflects number of international flights at that airport, and number of domestic flights does not change the percentage. It is not percentage of international flight at that specific airport.

There have been said a lot about international flight demand at Kansai area. ITM used to be the international airport for Kansai area. But ITM is close to the city of Osaka, surrounding area of the airport has already been developed and there was no physical space to expand ITM. The plan to make a new airport near Osaka to expand international service of Kansai area ended up in KIX and KIX opened in 1994. When KIX opened in 1994, "If you build it, they will come." did not happen at KIX as far as international flights were concerned.

Back in 1994 typical legacy airline business model for international flights was that airlines made money from first class and business class. Anything from selling economy class ticket was icing on the cake for airlines. Back in those days Kanto area had far larger corporations with international business than in Kansai area. That was the reasons airlines preferred Tokyo over Osaka. Another thing with KIX is that the airport was built in the middle of Osaka bay. They had to built the land from scratch and added to cost of the construction of the airport and they had to recoup the cost of the construction of the airport. KIX once had a title of the airport with the highest landing fee in the world. All these did not help attracting international flights at KIX.

To deal with the problem of KIX, the landing fee was lowered, and the airport authority put their eyes on LCC emerging in southeast Asia countries. The new plan was to attract LCC to KIX and it did work and showed increase of international flights at KIX.

Buy the way actual numbers are for 2023 winter:
NRT: 1,633.0 international flights per week
KIX: 1,181.5 international flights per week
HND: 982.0 international flights per week
FUK: 392.0 international flights per week
NGO: 263.5 Interntional flights per week
CTS: 123.0 international flights per week
OKA: 123.0 international flights per week

Fukuoka beating Nagoya for number of international flights.

Another number is when KIX opened, KIX had 48,965 landing/take off of international flights. Pre-pandemic 2019 KIX had 146,884 landing/take off of international flights.

Hi there
Do you possibly have the breakdown of the % of international airlines for individual airports? For example, Air NZ only flies non stop into/out of NRT and doesn't make it onto the list of international flights into/out of Japan above.
Many thanks if you have the info available.

Their (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) data showed that Japan-New Zealand flights during winter 2023 was NZ NRT-AKL 7 flights weekly only.