By Christopher Johnson

TOKYO – Japanese officials watching the demise this week of Japan’s flagship carrier, JAL, are looking to turn the hard lessons learned from the airline’s collapse into a new tourist boom for the country, backed by arrivals from old enemies, Russia and China.

JAL, brought down by poor scheduling, a shortage of overseas passengers and mountains of debt, this week entered bankruptcy after years of surviving on government loans. The new government, led since last August by the Democratic Party of Japan after the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party lost a general election, now aims to open up access to airports and target new destinations.

First up, it will ease security restrictions in March to allow more flights between Chitose airport, in the northern region of Hokkaido, and Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, and Russia’s far east. The destinations are a short hop for birds but a continent apart psychologically, due to a long history of war and ongoing disputes over neighboring islands.
Hokkaido is at the southern end of the Kuril chain of islands, which are held by Russia and which are claimed in part by Japan. Relatively unpopulated, it is also a popular tourist destination, particularly for skiing and other winter pursuits. Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa recently told a press conference that the ministry agreed to relax the controls near its air base there to “help Japan achieve its national policy of boosting foreign tourists”.

Also aimed at improving air links with Russia, Narita International Airport, near Tokyo, will see for the first time this summer twice-a-week charter flights to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, the two biggest cities in Russia’s far east, by Vladivostok Air, Japanese media reports say. The Russian airline already operates regular flights between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk to Niigata and Toyama, both in central Japan across the Japan Sea from Russia. Japan is hoping the new flights will add to the recent vanguard of Russians pouring into Japan for study and work, and increase business ties between the two former foes.

As for China, Japan’s Transport Ministry plans to open more slots for flights between the Chinese mainland and Haneda airport in Tokyo Bay. That will bring visitors closer to Tokyo’s tourist attractions than Narita airport, 60 kilometers away in rural Chiba prefecture.

Charter flights between Haneda and Beijing began last October, and Japan wants to encourage more links by allocating 16 of 40 daytime international slots at Haneda to direct flights to China, after the airport opens its fourth runway in October, according to Kyodo news. Tokyo will ask Beijing to approve this plan when they meet for aviation talks this summer.

“We are going to be using Haneda much more for international flights,” an All Nippon Airways spokesperson, Ohtsuki Kyoko, said in a phone interview. “We’re looking into flying into smaller regions in China as well.”

Japanese travelers heading overseas will also benefit. “Haneda is more convenient for many customers coming from within Japan and then flying overseas,” the spokesperson said. “This wasn’t possible in the past because of government regulations. The new government wants to make better use of airports.”

South Korean carriers are also lining up to take advantage of Japan’s tourism and business drive. Budget airline Air Busan, an affiliate of Asiana, will start flying between Busan and Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu, in March, and to Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, in April. Jeju Air, which has been operating for only five years, is to add services between Seoul’s Incheon airport and airports in Kita-Kyushu, also on Kyushu, and in Kansai, south of Tokyo. Jin Air, a subsidiary of Korean Air, is also mulling flights to Japan.

With Japan’s already sluggish economy struggling further amid the global financial crisis, the country is looking to tourists and their money to help bring in more cash and boost local business. That has meant changing favored stereotypes of its immediate neighbors. After years of depicting Chinese as criminals in Japan, recent Japanese TV programs have featured smiling Chinese tour groups strolling through Tokyo’s temples and fish markets, and sampling Japanese cameras and food.

Yet many analysts question whether Chinese, Koreans and Russians – as well as Japanese – will fill the seats on the new flights. If JAL couldn’t make it in its own backyard, they ask, why should Vladivostok Air?

The government hopes to triple the number of foreign visitors to 25 million a year by 2020, after a fall-off of 17% last year, according to public broadcaster NHK. It was the second-largest drop since 1950. Yet present numbers, and even the record number of 9.15 million tourist arrivals, set in 2007, pale in comparison, for example, with the more than 14 million visitors who head to Thailand each year.

While Japanese officials blame the financial collapse and more recent swine flu fears for the decrease in arrivals, critics point to the more general problem of Japan’s backward and discordant transportation system and overpriced hotels as deterring potential tourists. The state of the transport system in particular is seen as a factor in JAL’s downfall, reflecting the numerous infrastructure projects created for political reasons over the past two decades to bolster local economies.

“JAL lost money because they had to keep flying to regional airports such as Shizuoka, [about 185km southwest of Tokyo], and Yamaguchi [on the southern tip of Honshu island, about 770km southwest of the capital]. The politicians built these airports, so they wanted JAL to fly there,” said Hideaki Higashi, a strategist at SMBC Friend securities in Tokyo, in a phone interview. “The situation will probably be different now. JAL will likely keep the profitable routes and will stop flying to money-losing airports.”

With the government promising to inject new funds into a restructured JAL, this could tilt the playing field against foreign airlines operating through Japan, where landing fees are already higher than most countries. Chinese, Russian and other airlines that want to access Japan’s huge markets can’t even be sure where they might land because of disputes over many of Japan’s 97 regional airports.

Even as they were trying to promote their region in front of potential customers in Shanghai recently, two key politicians were arguing over what to do with two competing airports in the Kansai region, which bridges Honshu island south of Tokyo and includes Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe.

Osaka’s popular young governor, Toru Hashimoto, wants to close the profit-making Itami airport, which connects 31 Japanese cities to central Osaka, and redirect traffic to the bigger, newer Kansai International Airport, which is farther away from all three cities and which, with domestic flights to only seven Japanese cities, is losing money.

While closing a money-maker to save a money-loser seems illogical to many critics, Hashimoto insists it’s the only way to revive Kansai International, which has run up one trillion yen (US$11 billion) in debt after being constructed on an artificial island in Osaka bay. He also wants to build a bullet train by 2035 to connect Kansai Airport to Osaka in seven minutes.

“To turn Kansai International Airport into a super hub for the Asian region, there is no other choice but to close Itami,” Hashimoto told reporters this month. “At the local level, with the exception of Hyogo prefecture, I’m confident I can get officials to agree to close Itami.”

But Hyogo governor Toshizo Ido, who thinks Kansai Airport is too far away from his constituents in Kobe, immediately shot back. “The argument to close Itami is complete nonsense.”

Hashimoto says that closing Itami is part of a larger plan to turn the 400 hectare Itami area into a sort of island for foreigners and English-speaking Japanese. Called “International Campus Freedom City”, it would house international schools and universities, and about 20,000 people, including highly skilled foreigners specializing the fields such as biotechnology, new energy and cutting-edge medicine.

To attract talent from across Japan, the common language would be English. “All signs in the city will be in English,” says the plan, according to the Japan Times. “Young people from around Japan who want to improve their English will gather, and it will become a tourist spot, with shops and tourist facilities reminding people of overseas.” Foreigners who offer home-stays to Japanese will get tax breaks, says the plan.

Governor Ido would rather see foreigners fly in and out of Itami, rather than live there. “Rather than close Itami, why not reopen it to international flights,” he says.

Even if Japan finally makes its airports function in unison and allows more flights from Russia, China and elsewhere, airlines will still have to deal with a shrinking base of domestic customers.

Osaka’s population, about 8.8 million in 2005, will shrink to 8.3 million by 2020 and to 7.3 million by 2035, while Hyogo prefecture will decrease from about 5.6 million in 2005 to 4.8 million by 2020, according to the national government. By 2035, about 20% of those people will be over 75 years old, and less likely to fly to China and Russia.

As Transport Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters after JAL filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, “The aviation industry faces serious uncertainty.”

Tokyo-based freelance journalist Christopher Johnson (www.globalite.posterous.com) is author of Siamese Dreams and an upcoming novel set in Japan.