The Diet on May 17 enacted a law to integrate the management of Kansai airport and Itami (Osaka) airport. The transport ministry will establish a new firm by April 2012 with all the capital coming from the government. It will start operating in the summer of that year.
Kansai airport opened in 1994 with a 3,500-meter runway on an artificial island. In 2007, it gained a separate 4,000-meter runway on another artificial island.
Some ¥3 trillion was spent to construct the two runways, burdening the current firm managing Kansai airport with a total of ¥1.3 trillion in interest-bearing debt.