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Kansai International Airport (Kansai Kokusai Kūkō) is an international airport located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, off the shore of the cities of Sennan and Izumisano and the town of Tajiri in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. (It should not be confused with Osaka International Airport, which is closer to the city and now handles only domestic flights.) It was ranked 4th overall in the Airport of the Year 2006 awards named by Skytrax, next to Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport and Munich International Airport.

History

In the 1960s, when the Kansai region was rapidly losing trade to Tokyo, planners proposed a new airport near Kobe and Osaka. Osaka International Airport, located in the densely-populated suburbs of Itami and Toyonaka, was surrounded by buildings; it could not be expanded, and many of its neighbors had filed complaints because of noise pollution problems.

After the protests surrounding New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), which was built with expropriated land in a rural part of Chiba Prefecture, planners decided to build the airport offshore. The new airport was part of a number of new developments to revitalize Osaka, which had been losing economic and cultural ground to Tokyo for most of the century.

Initially, the airport was planned to be built near Kobe, but the city of Kobe refused the plan, so the airport was moved to a more southerly location on Osaka Bay. There, it could be open 24 hours per day, unlike its predecessor in the city. Local fishermen were the only group to protest, but they were silenced by hefty compensation packages.

Construction

A man-made island, 4 km long and 2.5 km wide, was proposed. Engineers needed to overcome the extremely high risks of earthquakes and typhoons (with storm surges of up to 3 meters). Construction started in 1987. The sea wall was finished in 1989 (made of rocks and 48,000 tetrahedral concrete blocks). Three mountains were excavated for 21 million cubic meters of landfill. 10,000 workers and 10 million work hours over 3 years, using 80 ships, were needed to complete the thirty-meter layer of earth over the sea floor and inside the sea wall. In 1990, a three-kilometer bridge was completed to connect the island to the mainland at Rinku-Town, at a cost of $1 billion. Completion of the artificial island increased the area of Osaka Prefecture just enough to move it past Kagawa Prefecture in size (leaving Kagawa as the smallest by area in Japan).

The island had been predicted to gradually sink as the weight of the material used to construct the island would cause it to compress downwards. However, by this time, the island had sunk 8 meters, much more than predicted. The project then became the most expensive civil works project in modern history after 20 years of planning, 3 years of construction and several billion dollars of investment. However, much of what was learned went into the successful artificial islands in silt deposits for New Kitakyushu Airport, Kobe Airport, and Chubu International Airport. The lessons of Kansai Airport were also applied in the construction of Hong Kong International Airport.

In 1991, the terminal construction commenced. To compensate for the sinking of the island, adjustable columns were designed to support the terminal building. These could be extended by inserting thick metal plates at their base.

The total cost of Kansai Airport so far is $20 billion. This includes the land reclamation, 2 runways, and terminal and facilities. The additional costs were mostly borne initially due to the island sinking, expected due to the soft soils of Osaka Bay, but after construction the rate of sinking was considered so severe that the airport was widely criticized as a notorious structural engineering disaster. The rate of sinking has since fallen from 50 cm during 1994 to 9 cm in 2006.

Expansion of Airport

The airport was at its limit during peak times, owing especially to freight flights, so a portion of Phase II expansion—the second runway—was made a priority. Thus, in 2003, believing that the sinking problem was almost over, the airport operators started the construction of a 4,000 m second runway and terminal

Further into the future, the airport is planning to construct a new terminal building, several aprons, runway 6C/24C with a length of 3500 meters, a new cargo terminal and expanding the airport size to 13 km². However these plans are being postponed by the Japanese Government due to economic reasons. The new runway is only used for landings unless there are incidents prohibiting take off use of runway A.

The airport now expects to handle 129,000 flights during the year 2007, an increase of 11% compared to 2006 figures of 116, 475 flights. The new runway allowed the airport to start 24 hour operations in September 2007.

Parking Facility

Two six-story parking structures, called P1 and P2, are above a railroad terminal station, while the other two level parking facilities, called P3 and P4, are adjacent to “Aeroplaza”, a hotel complex.

The airport is only accessible from the Sky Gate Bridge R, a part of Kansai Airport Expressway. The expressway immediately connects to Hanshin Expressways Route 5, “Wangan Route”, and Hanwa Expressway.

Monday, April 28th, 2008 @ 12:47 am Airports, Civil Engineering
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