Departure
99%
vs 95% ▲ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Matsuyama Airport (RJOM/MYJ) is a coastal airport on the island of Shikoku, serving the city of Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. Built on the Seto Inland Sea shoreline, it began life as an Imperial Japanese Navy airfield and is today the busiest airport in the Chugoku-Shikoku region, offering a single long instrument runway well suited to both airline traffic and simulator approaches over the water.
Matsuyama Airport lies on the coast of Shikoku, about 3 nautical miles west-southwest of Matsuyama city centre, facing out over the Seto Inland Sea. It is operated by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and has grown from a wartime naval airfield into the principal gateway to Ehime Prefecture, making it an interesting destination for simulator pilots flying domestic Japanese routes or approaches across the Inland Sea.
The airport sits on reclaimed and coastal land facing the Seto Inland Sea, roughly 3 NM (5.6 km) west-southwest of the centre of Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. As a large scheduled-service airport it is served by its own control tower and an approach service, indicating it lies within controlled airspace appropriate to a hub-category Japanese aerodrome.
Matsuyama has a single physical runway, 14/32, 8,176 ft long with a hard (asphalt) surface. It is lit for night operations and equipped with an ILS, aligned to serve approaches from the southeast (runway 14) and northwest (runway 32).
Traffic is worked by Iwakuni Approach on 128 MHz, with an ATIS broadcast on 126.65 MHz, and the tower operates on 118.35 MHz. The field is equipped with an ILS supporting instrument approaches to runway 14.
The airport's most prominent visual feature is its position directly on the Seto Inland Sea coastline, with the runway orientated roughly southeast-northwest facing the water, making the shoreline itself a useful reference for pilots inbound from the sea.
Matsuyama Airport opened in 1941 as an Imperial Japanese Navy airfield. Towards the end of the Second World War it served as the base for the 353rd Fighter Squadron, which flew in defence against Allied B-29 bombing raids. Following Japan's surrender the airfield came under the administration of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force before becoming a nationally administered civil airport in 1952. During the Korean War it was used by both United States and British military forces. On 13 November 1966, All Nippon Airways Flight 533 crashed into the sea a few miles from the airport, killing all 50 people aboard in an accident whose cause was never determined; this event prompted Japanese airport authorities nationwide to begin runway extension projects and to install navigation aids, including ILS systems, at airports across the country. Matsuyama became the first airport in Shikoku to receive jet service following a runway extension completed in 1972. In October 2013 a small propeller aircraft inbound from Kikai Airport crash-landed on the runway, forcing a temporary closure of the airport with no injuries reported.
Matsuyama Airport is the busiest airport in the Chugoku-Shikoku region, having surpassed Hiroshima Airport in passenger numbers, and handled around 3.2 million passengers in 2018. It hosts domestic services from carriers including All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, Ibex Airlines and Jetstar Japan to destinations such as Tokyo, Osaka, Naha, Fukuoka, Kagoshima and Nagoya. International services, including routes to Busan, Seoul and Taipei, were suspended in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and began resuming from December 2022, with charter and scheduled links to Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan restarting in subsequent years.