Narita Airport’s 3rd Runway Opening to Be Delayed

Narita, Chiba Pref., March 31 (Jiji Press)–The opening of the third runway at Japan’s Narita International Airport is expected to be delayed beyond the originally scheduled date of March 2029, informed sources said Tuesday. The new 3,500-meter Runway C is currently under construction at the airport in the city of Narita, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, but work has been affected due to difficulties in acquiring the planned site. Naoki Fujii, president of Narita International Airport Corp., the airport’s operator, will soon report the postponement to transport minister Yasushi Kaneko. Functional enhancement work is also underway at the airport, including the extension of the existing 2,500-meter Runway B. After completion, the airport’s annual takeoff and landing capacity is expected to increase from the current 340,000 to 500,000. Some sources indicate that the delay to Runway C may exceed one year, which could undermine the company’s ability to meet growing air travel demand, particularly from foreign visitors to Japan. The airport operator began full-scale construction of Runway C and other facilities in May 2025. The central government had instructed the operator to secure the necessary land within fiscal 2025, which ends this month, but the land acquisition rate stood at only 88.4 pct as of February this year. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]