Arrived in Japan

We had a good flight with minimal disturbance. Lunch was served quite early in the flight, we had a chicken salad for lunch and apple crumble dessert, the apple crumble was actually quite nice. Later in the flight we had a meat shortbread thing.

Qantas' entertainment system isn't known to be the best, however there was still enough there to keep us entertained. I watched Wolf of Wall Street and Lincoln as well as a few episodes of TV shows.

We arrived just on dusk and noticed a lot of agricultural land (and many golf courses oddly enough) in the vicinity of the airport as the plane descended. Narita Airport is located near to the City of Narita within the Chiba prefecture. The city itself has a population of approximately 130,000 people and is located approximately 50km east of Tokyo. The area historically had a strong agricultural sector, however the opening of the airport has reduced the farming population by two thirds (through land expropriation and poorer conditions due to the construction and operation of the airport).

The history of Narita Airport is actually quite interesting. Haneda Airport (opened in 1931) was for many years the main airport servicing Tokyo (in fact, in terms of pure passenger numbers it still is larger than Narita). Due to the rapid expansion of Japan after the Second World War, and the limited ability to expand Haneda Airport, a second airport was considered necessary. The area where the airport currently sits (Sanrizuka, near Narita City) was eventually chosen in the 1960's.

The announcement to build the airport at Narita caught the residents by surprise as there had been no prior consultation. As such there was significant opposition to the plans for the airport. Up to 60% of the land required for the airport was held in private ownership and residents were unwilling to sell their land to make way. In 1971, the government decided to make forceful acquisitions of land as is permitted under Japanese Law - this is starting to sound a bit like an offshoot of The Castle.

The compulsory acquisition of land didn't do anything to curb the anger of residents and the already violent protests turned more violent. Three riot police were killed during a protest in 1971 and there were numerous other examples of heated exchanges. In one instance, the airport control tower was infiltrated over night and protesters destroyed the control towers equipment.

The protesters did succeed in delaying the opening of the airport, originally slated to open in 1971, it did not open until 1978. The opening of the airport did not stop protests however with around 22,000 people rallying on the airports opening day. Later that year a plane landing at Narita Airport was successfully hit by fireworks fired by protesters.

The years following the opening of the airport, the protests started to lose momentum and eventually effectively stopped. There remains only occasional outbursts of protests to this day. The above-mentioned violence is the reason for such tight security at Narita Airport. Airports nowadays in Japan are generally constructed on reclaimed land to avoid a repeat of the Narita Airport fiasco.

Narita Airport still serves as the primary international airport in Japan and has a successful air freight operation.Read more