, often referred to as is the primary regional airport for the Kansai region of Japan, including the major cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe. Classified as a first class airport, it is the airport closest to Kyoto, southwest of Kyoto Station. Itami Airport has a small footprint, covering only 311 hectares (768 acres) of land.
Despite its "international" designation, the airport caters exclusively to domestic flights. Kansai International Airport ( away) took over the region's international traffic in 1994 and competes with Itami for domestic traffic. Itami also faces competition from Kobe Airport ( away), a smaller domestic airport opened in 2006.
The airport was named after the city of Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture, because most of its land is located there. A portion of the airport property is also located in Toyonaka and Ikeda cities of Osaka Prefecture. The terminal complex is located in all three of these cities, and the only access from the Itami side is via a long tunnel that passes below the runway and apron.
In FY2006, Itami was Japan's third busiest airport and the Kansai region's busiest. In 2015, this airport had 139,450 aircraft movements, serving 14,541,936 domestic passengers and carrying 140,668 metric tons of freight cargo.
History
Itami Airport opened as in 1939. Prior to the opening of Itami, Kizugawa Airport was Osaka's main civilian airport. It handled both seaplanes and conventional ones. The site of Kizugawa Airport is now a port area in Funamachi in south end of Taisho Ward with only a small marker located in Funamachi Ryokuchi Park below the Shin-Kizugawa Bridge.
In 1931, the Osaka municipal government drafted plans to construct a new "No. 1 Osaka Airport" near the mouth of the Yamato River, also targeted at seaplanes, but concerns about fog and protests from Kobe-based businesses led the government to build the "No. 2 Airport" for land-based aircraft instead.
Construction began in July 1936 on a 53-hectare (131 acre) site. The new airport was primarily used by the Imperial Japanese Army during its early years. U.S. occupation forces took over Osaka Airport after the end of World War II in 1945, expanding it to 221 hectares and renaming it Itami Air Base. The airfield was used extensively by US forces during the Korean War. In 1954, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio stopped at Itami during their honeymoon, and in 1956, the base was used in the filming of the movie Sayonara.
Itami was renamed following its return to Japanese control in March 1959. The Japanese government quickly implemented a plan to expand the airport by an additional 82.5 ha so that it could accommodate jet aircraft. Despite some protests from locals, the plan was approved by the neighboring city assemblies between 1960 and 1961 with strong backing from local business groups, and land was purchased between 1962 and 1964, in part out of the aviation industry's interest in keeping pace with the development of the Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail link between Tokyo and Osaka. The main runway was completed in 1970.
International era (1950s-1994)
In its heyday Itami was served by a variety of major international carriers, including Pan Am (Japan routes transferred to United in 1985), British Airways, Air India, Cathay Pacific and Korean Air. Northwest Airlines was a major international operator at Itami, and by 1992 offered nonstop service to New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Sydney. The Sydney service became the focus of a rare aviation agreement dispute between the United States and Australia, as less than 30% of passengers on the Australia-Japan segment were originating in the U.S. even though the "primary objective" of the route authority, according to the US-Australia aviation agreement, was service between the US and Australia. In 1993, after Australia demanded arbitration and the US implemented retaliatory sanctions against Qantas, Northwest was forced to limit the amount of local Australia-Japan traffic on the Osaka-Sydney route, and subsequently abandoned the service entirely. B.O.A.C also operated in Osaka until 1974, flying from either Taipei or Tokyo.
Political friction
While Japan's economy was growing rapidly, the area around Itami Airport became an increasingly dense residential area for commuters to Osaka.
A number of factors made the airport an intensely debated political issue in the 1960s and 1970s, among them: