Kobe Airport - Airlines and Destinations

Airlines and Destinations

Kobe has a single passenger terminal with four gates capable of accommodating widebody aircraft.

Some international charter flights also use Kobe Airport. Although the airport's runway is not long enough to handle long-range flights to Europe and the Americas, it occasionally handles charters to China and other nearby countries.

The Transport Ministry has banned "scheduled international charters" (such as those serving Haneda Airport) and has capped scheduled domestic operations at 30 daily flights in order to prevent overcrowding in the area's airspace and to protect the growth of Kansai Airport. The flight caps have been a point of controversy with Kobe Airport supporters, who point out that the cap was calculated based on Kansai Airport operating twice as many frequencies as are currently offered: given the current traffic levels at Kansai, Kobe should be able to handle six or seven flights per hour.

Although airlines have experienced some success with routes to the most popular domestic destinations, such as Tokyo, Sapporo and Okinawa, routes to secondary cities have been less successful. Since the airport's opening, ANA has terminated service to Niigata, Kagoshima and Sendai.