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Opening ceremony held for New Kitakyushu Airport(Kyodo News International (Tokyo) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 12--KITAKYUSHU -- Some 600 people joined the ceremony Sunday to mark the opening of the New Kitakyushu Airport in Fukuoka Prefecture, held prior to the start of its operations Thursday. The airport lies on the open sea of Suo off Kitakyushu, the second-largest city in the Kyushu region, featuring less noise and 21-hour operations from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning. It aims to attract businesspeople and revitalize the local economy. The new airport "has been the dream of Kitakyushu's 1 million citizens and people in the surrounding region," Mayor Koichi Sueyoshi said at the ceremony. "This is the airport that will underpin Kitakyushu in the 21st century." Among other participants, Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa praised the airport's "high user-friendliness," saying it will amount to "a strong basis for the development of the local economy." Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who is elected to the Diet from a constituency in Fukuoka Prefecture, said the new airport is close to other Asian countries and that it "could be the most open international airport in Japan." Its 2,500-meter runway enables large jet planes to use the airport, which manages a total of 21 domestic round-trip flights a day including 17 to and from Tokyo's Haneda airport by Star Flyer, Japan Airlines and its two affiliated carriers. China Southern Airlines will operate three round-trip flights a week between Kitakyushu and Shanghai. |