Japan Airlines (JAL) held a ceremony at New Chitose Airport on October 26 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its Tokyo/Haneda–Sapporo/Chitose route.
The ceremony was held at the departure gate to coincide with the 10:30 a.m. departure of Flight JL506. Attendees included Akira Ueno, General Manager of JAL’s Chitose Airport Branch; Masatoshi Shinada, Deputy Mayor of Chitose City; Kotaro Yamaguchi, Chairman of the Chitose Aviation Association; Takeshi Tanaka, Director of the New Chitose Airport Office of the Tokyo Civil Aviation Bureau; and Takehiro Iwamura, Deputy Director of the Chitose Airport Office at Hokkaido Airports. Passengers received original flight tags, original stickers, and “~Sky Imo~ Hokkaido Sweet Potato Pudding” as commemorative gifts.
The route was launched on October 26, 1951, as one of Japan’s first domestic private-sector air routes in the postwar period. At the time of its launch, the one-way flight took around three hours, with one round trip operated per day. The route significantly transformed travel between Tokyo and Sapporo, which had previously taken an entire day by ground transportation.
New Chitose Airport marked the 100th anniversary of its opening on October 22, 1926. It has been 100 years since the first “Hokkai” aircraft arrived at the airfield, which was built by hand by residents of what was then Chitose Village.
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