IZUMISANO, Osaka Prefecture--Passengers waiting to catch international flights at Kansai International Airport here or go through security checks are used to long waits, as 80 percent of airport users now travel to and from overseas.

In response, the airport is planning to improve its facilities to accept more visitors from outside Japan and help improve the flow through boarding gates as well as entry and departure zones in Terminal 1, mainly in the evenings and on weekends.

Kansai Airports, the airport operator, announced a plan on Dec. 12 to refurbish the airport’s core facility of Terminal 1 on a major scale for the first time since its opening in 1994.

Under the plan, the international flight area will be dramatically enlarged and improved in the run-up to the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo as the major gateway to the western Kansai region.

“Passengers have to move around in complex ways to catch their flights in Kansai Airport, making it a bizarre airport,” said Yoshiyuki Yamaya, CEO of Kansai Airports, at a news conference the same day. “The renovation work will simplify the structure and enable users to spend time in a more relaxed fashion.”

According to the initial estimate, 12 million international flight passengers and 13 million domestic line passengers were expected to use Terminal 1 annually. But there currently is a huge imbalance in the numbers, as 20.6 million international flight passengers visit Terminal 1 while a paltry 4 million individuals use domestic flights there.

To ease the chronic congestion at the international flight departure zone, Kansai Airports will make a large portion of the second floor of Terminal 1, in addition to the third and fourth floors, available for international flights.

That means the international passenger area will be increased by 25 percent, allowing Terminals 1 and 2 to accept up to 40 million international flight customers in total, 1.7 times that of fiscal 2018, according to Kansai Airports representatives.

On top of that, Terminal 1's security check area for international flights will be expanded and improved as well to reduce users’ stress. For example, 22 “smart lanes” will be installed so that more than one passenger can have their luggage examined simultaneously at each lane before boarding.

The total area for commercial facilities and restaurants in Terminal 1 will also be increased by 60 percent, and a new type of duty-free shop section is planned to boost merchandise sales.

“Opportunities to sell products have been lost due to the heavy congestion,” said Yamaya. “We will create an environment where people can enjoy shopping more easily.”

Consequently, the domestic flight passenger area will drop to 75 percent of its current size.

Estimated to cost a total of 70 billion yen ($639 million), the project will start in late 2020 and be carried out in four stages, so all the phases will be completed by spring 2025 to coincide with the Osaka-Kansai Expo, said the representatives.

UNEXPECTED INFLUX OF INBOUND VISITORS

Behind the conversion plan is a recent influx of foreign visitors.

At the time of its opening, Kansai Airport was forecast to attract around the same numbers of international and domestic flight passengers. The airport was designed based on the estimate, and the easier-to-access second floor directly connected to a station was intended for domestic flight users.

That was because more domestic flight passengers were thought to travel to and from Kansai Airport on the assumption that nearby Osaka Airport would soon need to be shut down owing to the noise pollution issue.

But Osaka Airport, also known as Itami airport, decided in 1990 to continue its operations at the request of municipalities co-hosting the airport, resulting in the two airports sharing domestic flight customers together.

As Kansai Airport is far from the central part of Osaka, fewer individuals use it for trips within Japan.

Although 8.29 million domestic flight passengers visited Kansai Airport in fiscal 1996, the number of such passengers who used its facilities, including Terminal 2, which was completed in 2012, in fiscal 2018 was 6.51 million, about 40 percent that of Osaka Airport.

To the delight of the airport, however, an unexpectedly large number of visitors from outside the nation show up at Kansai Airport. Buoyed by the weakening yen and the government relaxing requirements for tourist visas, the number of overseas sightseers started rising across Japan in the 2010s.

Budget carrier Peach Aviation Ltd. set up its base in Kansai Airport in 2012, with other airlines in other Asian states successively starting to offer flights there as well. The international flight passenger numbers at Terminals 1 and 2 more than doubled from 10.11 million in fiscal 2011 to 22.89 million in fiscal 2018.

Although the recently announced refurbishing plan is expected to ease the congestion, Yoshihisa Akai, director of the Japan Aviation Management Research center, noted that more drastic countermeasure should be taken to better respond to a further influx of visitors ahead of the Osaka-Kansai Expo.

“There is strong demand for budget carriers from other Asian countries,” said Akai. “Kansai Airport has an option of developing a new terminal.”

(This article was compiled from reports by Atsushi Kawada and Junichi Kamiyama.)