Haneda Airport resumed operations on its C Runway starting at 0:00 AM on January 8th.
The runway had been closed since the evening of January 2nd due to a collision and subsequent fire involving a Japan Airlines (JAL) aircraft and a Japan Coast Guard plane. Cleanup operations were completed on January 7th at 4:15 PM which allowed for the preparations for the resumption of operations. As a result, all four runways at the airport are now operational again.
The C Runway is the longest of the four runways at Haneda Airport. It’s essential for long-haul flights to Europe and America that carry large fuel loads, and some flights had to make refueling stops while it was out of service.
After the reopening, the Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights on the 16L side will remain out of use, which means during operations with a south wind, routes over the city during poor weather will always require the use of Instrument Landing System (ILS). With north wind operations, the airport can return to the same operations as before the accident. The ILS will be used temporarily for approximately one month.
The first flight departing after the reopening was ANA Flight 160 to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (Boeing 777-300ER, Registration: JA797A). It left 35 minutes behind the scheduled departure time of 10:55 PM on the 7th, at 11:30 PM, and took off at approximately 0:02 AM on the 8th after waiting on the taxiway until the runway reopened. The first arriving flight was JAL Flight 920 from Okinawa/Naha, which landed at 0:07 AM.
JAL has already decided to cancel 23 flights such as those on the Tokyo/Haneda to Itami and Fukuoka routes for January 8th and 9th. They are implementing special measures allowing fee-free changes and refunds for tickets for domestic and international flights booked up until March 31st. ANA plans to operate as usual.
Notice
This article was generated using automatic translation by GPT-4 API. The translation may not be accurate.
