We have also gradually implemented other air-port improvements on the basis of the First to Sixth 5-Year Plans for Airport Improvement between FY 1967 and FY 1995. As of October 1st, 1995 there were 90 airports throughout the country, of which 53 (59% of the total) were accessible by jet planes (i.e. had runways of 2,OOOm or more), while 27 (30% of the total) were accessible by DC-10, B-747 and other jumbo jets (i.e. had runways of 2,500m or more). As a result, in FY 1994 jet planes could access 192(80%) of the total of 240 domestic air traffic routes (including routes used by provisional flights to cope with the Hanshin earthquake and transfer routes from Osaka International Airport to the Kansai International Airport). Of the total of 74.55 million passengers on domestic flights in that year, jet plane users accounted for 71.9 million (96%).
(b)Future Prospects
As new projects for FY 1995, implementation design survey costs for the Hiroshima and Yamaguchi Ube Airport runway extension projects have been calculated, and we are for example planning to promote runway extension projects in 26 airports, including the Amakusa commuter airport. When these are complete, the number of airports will increase from the current 90 to 94, the number of airports capable of handling jet planes from 53 to 61, and the number of airports capable of handling jumbo jets from 27 to 36.
