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The first highway bus connecting Ibaraki Airport in Ome City, Ibaraki Prefecture and Tokyo Station in central Tokyo has commenced yesterday on May 27. As a move to expand its service and to promote the use of the newly-opened Ibaraki Airport, the prefecture government has decided to introduce the highway bus service allowing for better access to central Tokyo.

The 3 run-daily shuttle service operated by Kanto Railway Co Ltd (headquarters based in Tsuchiura City, Ibaraki) has timed the departure and arrival time based on the flight schedule the airport is currently hosting, with 2 international flight services to Seoul and a domestic flight service to Kobe. Check the schedule below for arrival/departure times. The journey time takes between 1h40min to 2h30m.

Ticket is priced at 500yen one-way (for passengers arriving or departing for flight) and 1000yen one-way (for non-passengers). Prior reservation is required. (Tel: ０２９－２４７－５１１１ Mito reservation office / office hours: ９：００h ～１９：００h )

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No use crying over spilled milk now, I must say. “You build it so they will come” and so that investors will flood the door when infrastructure is in place. Who are to be blamed? Those who hope to profit from the economic benefit an airport are just as guilty, don’t just blame it on the salesman, the people in the office who decided the construction of the airport. However they will not sleep well every night without being pricked by guilt.

Ibaraki Airport now officially recognised as the 98th airport opened in Japan, has been making headlines for the past few months prior to its opening, with everyone’s questioning its very existance, the need for its construction. It opened at a tough time when bad news are pouring everywhere and after the bankruptcy of Japan Airlines, largest Airlines in Asia, whose main reasons contributing to its failure were believed to be from over expanding too quickly and relation with the past administration, often being pressured to operate from several airports that could hardly able to fill enough passengers on its flight.

With a new JAL, from now on being closely watched by the public and tendency to be scrutinized for one small mistake, it quickly turned down the offer when asked to consider flying into Ibaraki airport. No question asked. JAL’s rival, ANA, rejected using Ibaraki airport too. This explained why Ibaraki airport opened on the 11th of this month with only one single regular flight at opening and one domestic flight to commence a month later after opening.

No one would expect this to have happened. Those numbers were looking so promising and everyone thought the plan will take off. Again unfortunately the numbers were bloated to trick people into believing that decisions were not wrongly made. It is done so so that it will allow for multi-million dollars construction works to be passed. Not realizing that what is in demand are construction projects but not airports.

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