Osaka Kansai airport has closed indefinitely after typhoon Jebi, the strongest to hit Japan in the last 25 years, caused widespread flooding and damage to the airport infrastructure.
Channel News Asia has reported that the airport could remain closed for as long a week. Besides the flooding of the runway, taxiways, and the apron, water also penetrated the passenger terminal and flooded basements, officials confirmed. No formal deadline for reopening has been named yet.
The airport, located on an artificial island, is currently also inaccessible after heavy wind blew a tanker ship into the bridge connecting the airport to the mainland. As a result, some 3,000 passengers were stranded in the terminal, unable to leave either by road transport or by train. They were eventually evacuated by boats once the winds calmed down.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Osaka Kansai sees 1,802 weekly departures. The largest carriers at the airport are ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda) and its LCC subsidiary Peach Aviation (MM, Osaka Kansai), which have a combined market share of 21.34% by capacity.
ch-aviation research shows that a total of six aircraft are currently stranded at Osaka Kansai, namely:
- three A320s operated by Peach: JA802P (msn 4936), JA806P (msn 5384), JA808P (msn 5540), JA817P (msn 6824)
- three B767-300(ER)s operated by ANA: JA620A (msn 40565), JA622A (msn 40567), JA626A (msn 40897)
In total, at least 11 persons died throughout Japan because of the typhoon.
