Fukuoka Airport’s new midterm plan targets international expansion and profitability

Fukuoka Airport
Already being served by an extensive network of domestic flights, Fukuoka Airport is relying on international network expansion in its growth plan.

On March 28, 2024, Fukuoka Airport’s operator Fukuoka International Airport Co., Ltd. announced its midterm plan, covering the period between 2024 and 2028. The airport aims to expand its international route network considerably and for 2026 to be its first profitable year since the airport’s 2019 privatization.

By FY2028, Fukuoka Airport aims to increase the number of international routes serving the airport by about 65%, from the current 23 to 38. Currently the airport is only served from destinations in Asia, primarily from cities in South Korea and Greater China. As part of its midterm plan, the airport hopes to attract airlines to add routes from Southeast Asian resort cities, currently unserved cities in China, and even intercontinental routes from Europe, the US, and Australia.

While Hawaiian Air’s route from Honolulu is Fukuoka’s farthest destination right now, in the past Fukuoka also briefly had non-stop connections with Amsterdam and Helsinki. The former was operated up to four times a week by KLM between April 2013 and January 2016. The latter was a seasonal flight briefly operated by Finnair from May 2016.

The capacity-constrained airport located on a space-constrained plot of land in the middle of the city is currently working on multiple projects that will allow it to accommodate the planned growth. At the beginning of the next fiscal year, in March 2025, Fukuoka Airport plans to put into service its second runway, parallel with its existing one. It is also planning to complete an expansion of its domestic side to include a hotel and other new facilities in FY2026.

With all of that, the airport’s operator plans to turn profitable in FY2026 (April 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027). While for FY2024 and FY2025 it budgeted net losses of 7 billion yen (approximately 46.5M USD) and 1 billion yen (approximately 6.6M USD), for FY2026 through FY2028 it budgeted net profits of 300 million yen (approximately 2M USD), 4 billion yen (approximately 26.5M USD), and 5 billion yen (approximately 33M USD) respectively.

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