Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Aomori Airport is a large regional and international airport in Aomori Prefecture, northern Honshu, serving Aomori city and the wider Tohoku region with a single long instrument runway. It is a useful IFR-capable field for simulator pilots exploring northern Japan, offering an ILS approach and heavy snow-clearance operations that make it operationally distinctive in winter months.
Aomori Airport is a public airport operated by Aomori Prefecture, serving the city of Aomori and the northern Tohoku region of Japan. It handles a mix of domestic trunk routes to Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Sapporo alongside international services to Seoul and Taipei, and for a simulator pilot it offers a long, well-equipped single-runway field set among the mountainous terrain of northern Honshu, with a full ILS approach and a history shaped by relocation and repeated runway extension.
The airport lies in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, roughly 11 kilometres south-southwest of Aomori Station and about 12 kilometres from Aomori's city centre, southwest of the downtown area. Approach and area control in the region is provided through Sapporo, with Sapporo Control handling en-route traffic on 133.3 MHz.
Aomori has a single physical runway, 06/24, aligned northeast-southwest. It measures approximately 9,798 feet (runway 06) and 9,797 feet (runway 24) in length, with a hard paved surface and runway lighting on both directions. Runway 24 is equipped with an ILS, and the field is confirmed as ILS-equipped overall.
Traffic at Aomori is worked by Tower on 118.3 MHz, with Sapporo Control providing area control on 133.3 MHz. The field has an ILS approach available for runway 24, which was upgraded to Cat-3a fog-penetration standard in 2007.
Aomori Airport's origins date to 1962, when the Ministry of Transport granted permission to build an airport for the region. The first Aomori airport opened on 5 November 1964 in the town of Namioka, since annexed into the city of Aomori, with a single 1,200 by 30 metre runway suited to the NAMC YS-11. Sited at an altitude of 200 metres in a mountain-ringed valley, that original field suffered from poor weather resilience, prompting a series of runway extensions - to 1,350 metres in 1971, widened to 45 metres in 1972, and lengthened again to 1,400 metres in 1973 - along with terminal expansions in 1974 and 1978. Geographic constraints eventually forced a relocation, and the present airport, southwest of downtown Aomori, opened in 1987 with a single 2,000 by 60 metre runway fitted with an ILS; much of the old airfield's land still lies within the northeastern part of today's site, roughly along the light-aircraft apron. The runway was extended to 2,500 metres in 1990 and to its current 3,000 metres in 2005, with the ILS upgraded to Cat-3a capability in 2007. Scheduled air services began on 1 June 1965 with Toa Airways (later Japan Air System) flying YS-11s to Haneda. All Nippon Airways added Tokyo services in 1994, and the airport gained international certification in 1995 when Korean Air began flights to Seoul and Siberian Airlines to Khabarovsk. Traffic fluctuations followed over subsequent decades, including ANA's withdrawal and return, Skymark's brief tenure, and the cessation of the Siberian Airlines route in 2004; JAS routes passed to Japan Airlines after the 2004 merger. The extension of the Tohoku Shinkansen to Aomori in 2010 introduced strong rail competition on the Tokyo route. EVA Air began twice-weekly Taipei service in July 2019, and the terminal was renovated the same year to expand international capacity.
Aomori continues to operate as an international gateway for northern Tohoku, with scheduled domestic services from ANA Wings, J-Air and Japan Airlines to Tokyo-Haneda, Osaka-Itami and Sapporo-Chitose, Fuji Dream Airlines flights to Kobe and Nagoya-Komaki, and international connections to Seoul-Incheon with Korean Air and Taipei-Taoyuan with EVA Air. The single runway and its surrounding 55 square kilometre operating area are kept clear through the winter by a dedicated snow-removal fleet, reflecting the airport's routine exposure to heavy annual snowfall.