Tokyo’s Two Airports Add Facilities, Convenience

Tokyo’s two airports, Narita and Haneda, are adding more facilities and convenience. One of the airport trains Sky Liner opens a shorter route to downtown Tokyo from Narita Airport in spring 2010.

The new service shortens the trip from 51 minutes to 36 minutes to Nippori Station in central Tokyo at the highest speed of 99 mph. The new car is designed by the fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto. The competitor Narita Express has just renewed the cars with leather seats, connecting the airport to Tokyo station in 53 minutes.

The Mori Building Co. started celebrity helicopter service between central Tokyo and Narita starting at $500. The French Hermes designed the interior. The service dispatches from the rooftop heliport of Arc Mori Building in Akasaka to the nearby heliport in Narita, then the limousine drives up to the front of the airport terminal. The service will be available up to 22 roundtrips daily.

Tokyo’s Haneda airport will house the first airport planetarium in the world. The planetarium will be in Haneda’s new international terminal that is scheduled to open in October 2010.

For busy travelers with only few minutes to spare at the airport, each space show is within half-hour-long. Haneda airport primarily serves for domestic flights and short-haul international flights to Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, but the new expansion in 2010 plans to accommodate more international destinations.