Largely spurned by Japan’s domestic airlines and with only one daily international scheduled flight, Japan’s latest airport to open, Ibaraki, is setting its sights on developing a role as gateway to the Greater Tokyo Area for foreign low-cost carriers (LCCs). With little pre-publicity in the metropolis, what is in realty Tokyo’s third airport opens for business on 11-Mar-2010. The airport was built as an extension to the Hyakuri Japan Air Self Defence Force base. Basically all it needed was a 2,700-metre runway parallel to the military runway, an apron and a passenger terminal.