Kansai and Osaka Itami lead Japan's ambitious airport privatisation programme - with 2020 the target

When the privatisation of airports became both popular and frequent in the 1990s Japan was noticeable for its absence, being a country where the concept of public service financing of public projects was well established and politics was often an important component. One result has been the construction of over 90 loss-making airports.

Typically, the expansion of an airport's terminal or the building of a new one, or the extension of a runway, would be financed by central government and local authorities with relatively small private sector representation in the form of loans from banks and important local companies. The notion of private sector investment backed up by private sector management for private sector gain was not generally welcomed.

But there is change in the air.