Visitors wearing face masks arrive at Narita international airport in Narita, near Tokyo Friday, June 10, 2022. (Photo: AP)
TOKYO, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- The number of airline passengers using Japan's Narita Airport in Tokyo saw a year-on-year increase of nearly threefold in 2022, largely owing to the relaxation of border controls since October last year, local media reported on Sunday.
In 2022, a total of some 15.4 million passengers used the international airport on the east of Tokyo, up 2.9 times from the previous year, Japan's public broadcaster NHK cited the Narita International Airport Corp. as saying.
The number of domestic flight passengers stood at 6.38 million, 1.9 times as many as that of 2021, while the figure for international passengers came to 9.03 million, 4.7 times more than the year before.
Despite improvements, the total number is only about one-third of the pre-pandemic level as the number of passengers from China has not recovered, the airport operator said.
President of Narita International Airport Corp., Akihiko Tamura, said visitors from China are the key for the recovery of the number of passengers.
In 2021, Narita Airport handled approximately 5.24 million terminal passengers, setting a record low for international travelers at 1.89 million, a drop of 74 percent from the preceding year.
