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View Full Version : Tokyo International Airport ?



Maciamo
Jul 24, 2003, 10:07
In this article (Ryanair loses Duesseldorf name battle (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3088311.stm) ), a European court rules that Irish Discount Airline Ryan Air cannot use the name "Dusseldorf" for Niederrhein Airport, on grounds that it is too far from the city (70km away). Whereas it's true that this region of Germany has lot's of big cities packed next to each other, Dusseldorf is what usually describes the Rhur area.

I was thinking of the name of Narita Airport, also called Tokyo International Airport (東京国際空港), while it's 80km away from Tokyo Station, and about 90km from Shibuya or Shinjuku.
But shouldn't it be called Chiba airport, if they want an other name than that of the town of Narita ? This name is at least as confusing as the example above. It takes in average 90min by train or bus to reach the airport from Tokyo. In Europe, it only takes 60 min from the center of Paris to that of Brussels by "shinkansen" or 2h from one of these city to London. You could call Paris CDG Airport Brussels airport and be nearer (well 300km, but nearer in travel time) from it than Tokyo is from Narita. However, Brussels also has several airports of its own if you include those in a 80km radius.

How comes a 30 million metropolis (more populous than the Benelux) like Tokyo only has 1 international airport and so far away ? It's so inconvenient. It reminds me of the "haul" from Bombay to its airport, also about 90min away. The reason is that there is no train and by taxi there are traffic jams all the way to the center, as Bombay is a peninsula, and its center is at the tip. But how comes I compare sordid Bombay with the one of the richest city in th world, Tokyo ?