Thanks to improvements for business aircraft at some of Japan’s major airports, business aircraft activity there has sharply increased, according to Japanese aviation officials. At a press briefing at NBAA in Orlando Monday, Hideki Fukui, director of policy research for Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau, told reporters that the average business aviation movement growth increase between 2010 and 2015 was about 2.9 percent. But between 2014 and 2015, operations increased by more than 20 percent at two of the country’s major airports, once of which was Narita.
Fukui said the country has made major strides in reducing delays on the ground and expediting customs clearance. What used to require up to 30 minutes of taxi time to customs has been reduced to three minutes and several airports have added parking slots exclusively for business aviation, Fukui said. However, the country still has work to do. Although requested flight plans for foreign aircraft movements used to require 10 days for approval and now require three days, Japan is far from the U.S. standard of flight plan approval on demand.
