Nagasaki Airport (長崎空港, Nagasaki Kūkō) (IATA: NGS, ICAO: RJFU) is an international airport located 4 km (2.5 mi) west of the railway station[2] in the city of Ōmura and 18 km (11 mi) north northeast of the Nagasaki railway station in the city of Nagasaki,[2] Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.
The airport terminal and runway 14/32 are on an island, and the shorter runway 18/36 (now used by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for helicopter flights) is on the mainland.
Oriental Air Bridge, a regional airline is based at the airport.[3]
History
The mainland portion of the airport opened as a military aerodrome in 1923, and commenced civilian joint use as Omura Airport (大村空港) in 1955.
The current island runway and terminal opened on May 1, 1975,[4] and became Japan’s first full-scale airport built over water.[5] It was also the first airport in the world to be built on the ocean.[4] Although Nagasaki is superficially similar to Japan’s other island airports, Kansai International Airport, Kobe Airport, Kitakyushu Airport, and Chūbu Centrair International Airport, Nagasaki Airport was constructed on Mishima Island (Japanese: 箕島).[4] Constructing the airport required flattening the island’s hills and reclaiming land around its shore, expanding it from 0.9 to 1.54 km2 (0.35 to 0.59 sq mi). The island had 66 residents in 13 households, all of whom agreed to relocate so that the new airport could be built.[4]
Nagasaki’s first international service, to Shanghai, commenced in September 1979.[4] There are no longer any scheduled international flights to or from Nagasaki as of December 2022.[6] The main runway was extended from 2,500 m to its current length in 1980, and the old mainland “A runway” (18/36) was abolished in 2010.[5]