Life will instantly become a lot noisier for an estimated 1 million residents of Tokyo from Sunday.
New flight paths for aircraft approaching Haneda Airport formally take effect this weekend, with up to 44 planes per hour being given clearance to fly over some of Tokyo’s busiest neighborhoods — Shinjuku, Shibuya and Shinagawa — over a period of three hours in the afternoon on days in which the wind is blowing from the south.
Should such southerlies arrive on Sunday, commercial flights will finally be given the green light to officially pass over central Tokyo when approaching landing strips at Haneda Airport for the first time. Until now, Japan’s largest airport in terms of passenger capacity has relied on routes over Tokyo Bay for landings since it started operations in 1931.
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