Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) recently announced a summary of Air Transport Statistics for FY 2012. According to the statistics, the number of passengers of regular domestic air transport was 85,970,000 kilometers, 8.7% increase compared to FY 2011 and passenger kilometer was 7 billion 77,888,850,000, 9.4% increase compared to the same year. For Bullet Train and local trains, the number of passengers of Bullet Train was 36,900,000, 9.8% increase from FY 2011 and for local trains 49,070,000 passengers, 8.0% increase from 2011. On passenger kilometer basis, bullet Train increased 10.8% from 2011 with 38,120,990,000 and local trains increased 8.2% from the same year with 39,767,850,000.
For domestic flights, the number of passengers on airline routes with new LCC services between the airports Kansai/Shinchitose, Kansai/Naha, Narita/Shinchitose, Narita/Shinchitose, Narita/Fukuoka, Narita/Naha and Kansai/Fukuoka has largely increased.
New entry by LCC resulted in the overall increase of airline passengers. The airline route with the most number of passengers was Haneda/Shinchitose with 8680,000 followed by Haneda/Fukuoka with 7560,000 and Haneda/Naha with 5020,000 passengers.
Cargo weight of regular domestic air transport increased 1.1% compared to FY 2011 with 905,489 tons and on ton kilometer basis, increased 1.8% compared to the same year with 945,620,000 ton kilometers. Focusing on Bullet Train and local trains, on ton basis, Bullet Train increased 1.2% with 650,202 tons and local trains increased 0.7% compared to FY 2011 with 255,287 tons. On ton kilometer basis, Bullet Train increased 1.8% with 717,460,000 ton kilometers and local trains increased 1.9% compared to FY 2011with 228,160,000 ton kilometers. By utilizing the hub function of Naha Airport with the raise in the number of freights and enlargement of equipments, cargo transportation volume between Narita/Naha has greatly increased.
Furthermore, the number of passengers of international air transport increased 12.8% compared to FY 2011 with 1,421,000 and passenger kilometers increased 13.7% compared to the same year with 62,400,120,000. By destination, the number of passengers to China was 2,760,000 (0.9% decrease from FY 2011), Korea 1,950,000 (18.7% increase from the same year), other Asian countries 5,040,000 (21.3 increase from the same year), North America 1,740,000 (21.8% increase from the same year), Pacific regions 1,350,000 (0.8% increase from the same year), Europe 1,230,000 (9.6% increase from the same year) and Oceania 135,000 (13.5% increase from the same year); business performance to all destinations except China exceeded the previous year.
Additionally, cargo weight of international air transport increased 6.8% compared to FY 2011 with 1,145,862 tons and on ton kilometer basis, increased 6.4% compared to the same year with 6,124,780,000 ton kilometers.
