Before the construction of Haneda, the area was a prosperous resort centered around Anamori Inari Shrine, and Tokyo's primary airport was
Tachikawa Airfield. It was the main operating base of
Japan Air Transport, then the country's
flag carrier. But as it was a military base and away from central Tokyo, aviators in Tokyo used various beaches of
Tokyo Bay as airstrips, including beaches near the current site of Haneda (Haneda was a town located on Tokyo Bay, which merged into the Tokyo ward of
Kamata in 1932). In 1930, the Japanese postal ministry purchased a portion of reclaimed land from a private individual to construct an airport.
Empire era (1931–1945) first opened in 1931 on a small piece of reclaimed land at the west end of today's airport complex. A concrete runway, a small airport terminal, and 2 hangars were constructed. The first flight from the airport on August 25, 1931, carried a load of insects to
Dairen in the
Kwantung Leased Territory (now part of China). The major Japanese newspapers also built their first flight departments at Haneda during this time, and
Manchukuo National Airways began service between Haneda and
Hsingking, the capital of Manchukuo. JAT was renamed
Imperial Japanese Airways following its nationalization in 1938. The airport's size grew to using land purchased by the postal ministry from a nearby exercise ground.
Occupation era (1945–1952) at Haneda Army Air Base in 1952 On September 12, 1945, General
Douglas MacArthur,
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers and head of the
Occupation of Japan following World War II, ordered that Haneda be handed over to the occupation forces. On the following day, he took delivery of the airport, which was renamed
Haneda Army Air Base, and ordered the eviction of many nearby residents to make room for various construction projects, including extending one runway to and the other to . On the 21st, Anamori Inari Shrine and over 3,000 residents received orders to leave their homes within 48 hours. Many were resettled on the other side of a river in the Haneda district of Ota, surrounding
Anamoriinari Station, and some still live in the area today. The expansion work commenced in October 1945 and was completed in June 1946, at which point the airport covered . Haneda AAF was designated as a
port of entry to Japan. US military personnel based at Haneda were generally housed at the Washington Heights residential complex in central Tokyo (now
Yoyogi Park). Haneda Air Force Base received its first international passenger flights in 1947 when
Northwest Orient Airlines began
DC-4 flights across the North Pacific to the United States, and within Asia to China, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Pan American World Airways made Haneda a stop on its "round the world" route later in 1947, with westbound DC-4 service to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kolkata, Karachi, Damascus, Istanbul, London and New York, and eastbound Constellation service to Wake Island, Honolulu and San Francisco. The U.S. military gave part of the base back to Japan in 1952; this portion became known as Tokyo International Airport. The US military maintained a base at Haneda until 1958, when the remainder of the property was returned to the Japanese government. European carriers began service to Haneda in the 1950s.
Air France arrived at Haneda for the first time in November 1952.
BOAC de Havilland Comet flights to London via the southern route began in 1953, and
SAS DC-7 flights to
Copenhagen via
Anchorage began in 1957. JAL and
Aeroflot began cooperative service from Haneda to Moscow in 1967. Pan Am and Northwest Orient used Haneda as a hub. The August 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 86 domestic and 8 international departures each week on Japan Air Lines. Other international departures per week: seven Civil Air Transport, three Thai DC4s, 2 Hong Kong Airways Viscounts (and maybe three DC-6Bs), two Air India, and one QANTAS. Northwest had 16 departures a week, Pan Am had 12, and Canadian Pacific had four; Air France had three, KLM had three, SAS had five, Swissair had two, and BOAC had three. As of 1966, the airport had three runways: 15L/33R (), 15R/33L () and 4/22 (). The
Tokyo Monorail opened between Haneda and central Tokyo in 1964, in time for the
Tokyo Olympics. In 1964, Japan lifted travel restrictions on its citizens, causing passenger traffic at the airport to swell. Around 1961, the government began considering further expansion of Haneda with a third runway and additional apron space, but forecast that the expansion would only meet capacity requirements for about ten years following completion. In 1966, the government decided to build a new airport for international flights. In 1978,
Narita Airport opened, taking over almost all international service in the Greater Tokyo Area, and Haneda became a domestic airport. In October 2006, Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao reached an informal agreement to launch bilateral talks regarding an additional city-to-city service between Haneda and
Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. On 25 June 2007, the two governments concluded an agreement allowing for the Haneda-Hongqiao service to commence from October 2007. Since August 2015, Haneda also began flight services to Shanghai's other airport,
Shanghai Pudong International Airport (where most flights operate from
Narita International Airport) which means there is no longer a city-to-city service between Tokyo and Hongqiao Airport as all flights from Haneda and Shanghai are focused at Pudong Airport. In December 2007, Japan and the People's Republic of China reached a basic agreement on opening charter services between Haneda and
Beijing Nanyuan Airport. However, because of difficulties in negotiating with the Chinese military operators of Nanyuan, the first charter flights in August 2008 (coinciding with the
2008 Summer Olympics) used
Beijing Capital International Airport instead, as did subsequent scheduled charters to Beijing. In June 2007, Haneda gained the right to host international flights that depart between 8:30 pm and 11:00 pm and arrive between 6 am and 8:30 am. The airport allows departures and arrivals between 11 pm and 6 am, as Narita Airport is closed during these hours.
Macquarie Bank and Macquarie Airports owned a 19.9% stake in Japan Airport Terminal until 2009, when they sold their stake back to the company.
Second international era (2010–present) tower (right) and old tower (center) A third terminal for international flights was completed in October 2010. The cost to construct the five-story terminal building and attached 2,300-car parking deck was covered by a
private finance initiative process, revenues from duty-free concessions, and a facility use charge of ¥2,000 per passenger. Both the Tokyo Monorail and the Keikyū Airport Line added stops at the new terminal, and an international air cargo facility was constructed nearby. The fourth runway (05/23), which is called
D Runway, was also completed in 2010, having been constructed via
land reclamation to the south of the existing airfield. This runway was designed to increase Haneda's operational capacity from 285,000 movements to 407,000 movements per year, permitting increased frequencies on existing routes, as well as routes to new destinations. In particular, Haneda would offer additional slots to handle 60,000 overseas flights a year (30,000 during the day and 30,000 during late night and early morning hours). In May 2008, the Japanese Ministry of Transport announced that international flights would be allowed between Haneda and any overseas destination, provided that such flights must operate between 11 pm and 7 am. In October 2013,
American Airlines announced the cancellation of its service between Haneda and
New York JFK stating that it was "quite unprofitable" owing to the schedule constraints at Haneda; however, the airline resumed its service between Haneda and New York-JFK in 2024. Haneda Airport's new International Terminal has received numerous complaints from passengers using it during night hours. One of the complaints is the lack of amenities available in the building, as most restaurants and shops are closed at night. Another complaint is that there is no affordable public transportation at night operating out of the terminals. The
Keikyu Airport Line,
Tokyo Monorail, and most bus operators stop running services out of Haneda by midnight, and so passengers landing at night are forced to go by car or taxi to their destination. A Haneda spokesperson said that they would work with transportation operators and the government to improve the situation. Daytime international slots were allocated in October 2013. In the allocation among Japanese carriers,
All Nippon Airways argued that it should receive more international slots than
Japan Airlines due to JAL's recent government-supported bankruptcy restructuring, and ultimately won 11 daily slots to JAL's five. The new daytime slots led to increased flight capacity between Tokyo and many Asian markets, but did not have a major effect on capacity between Japan and Europe, as several carriers simply transferred flights from Narita to Haneda (most notably ANA and Lufthansa services to Germany, which almost entirely shifted to Haneda). In an effort to combat this effect, the
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport gave non-binding guidance to airlines that any new route at Haneda should not lead to the discontinuation of a route at Narita, although it was possible for airlines to meet this requirement through cooperation with a code sharing partner (for instance, ANA moved its London flight to Haneda while maintaining a code share on Virgin Atlantic's Narita-London flight). An expansion of the new international terminal was completed at the end of March 2014. The expansion includes a new 8-gate pier to the northwest of the existing terminal, an expansion of the adjacent apron with four new aircraft parking spots, a hotel inside the international terminal, and expanded check-in, customs/immigration/quarantine, and baggage claim areas. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport constructed a new road tunnel between the Terminal 1/2 and Terminal 3 to shorten the connection time. Construction began in 2015 and concluded in 2020. In addition to its international slot restrictions, Haneda remains subject to domestic slot restrictions; domestic slots are reallocated by MLIT every five years, and each slot is valued at 2–3 billion yen in annual income. Haneda Innovation City, a new business hub, was built on the site of the old terminal near
Tenkūbashi Station and opened on 16 November 2023. ==Facilities==