THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
August 10, 2023 at 18:54 JST
Travelers departing overseas crowd airline counters at Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture on Aug. 10. (Tatsuya Shimada)
With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions and the start of Bon holidays, Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture was packed again with travelers on Aug. 10.
“We had refrained from traveling abroad due to the pandemic, so now we want to enjoy our trip,” said Makoto Kozaki, 53, who was flying to Bali, Indonesia, with his family of four.
“It’s been a long time since my last overseas trip,” said Nobuhiro Shibata, 48, who was traveling to Hong Kong with his family. “I’ll take my kids to Disneyland, which they have eagerly wanted to visit.”
They were among the significant surge of passengers leaving Japan, which reached its peak on Aug. 10.
This year marks the first Bon holiday period since the severity of COVID-19 was downgraded to the same level as seasonal influenza.
At Narita Airport, the number of passengers on international flights during the Bon period from Aug. 10 to Aug. 20 is projected to reach around 770,000, 3.7 times that of the previous year, according to the Narita International Airport Corp.
The latest figure is nearly 70 percent compared to the number of 2019, before the pandemic.
The peak for passengers arriving back to Japan is expected on Aug. 20.
On the other hand, the number of passengers on domestic flights is expected to remain flat from the previous year at around 277,000. The figure is more than 90 percent compared to that of 2019, the company said.
The peak for domestic departures is expected on Aug. 11 while the peak for arrivals is anticipated on Aug. 20.
Airlines said airfares for overseas travel have risen 20 to 40 percent on many routes compared to 2019, before the pandemic.
Contributing factors include surging energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the weak yen.
While in August 2019, the exchange rate was around 106 yen to 1 U.S. dollar, it now stands about 143 yen to the dollar.
(This article was written by Hiroyuki Kamisawa and Fumio Masutani, senior staff writer.)
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