Naha Airport / JASDF Naha Air Base

Naha Airport is the principal aviation gateway to Okinawa Prefecture and the busiest airport in the Ryukyu Islands, serving the Naha metropolitan area and functioning as the aviation lifeline for all of Okinawa Prefecture's 1.5M residents plus the vast tourist flows drawn to the subtropical islands. Located 2.5 mi (4 km) south of downtown Naha at 12 ft (4 m) elevation on the southwestern coast of Okinawa Island, OKA handles 88 routes across 41 destinations through 34 airlines. The airport is a joint civil-military facility sharing its airfield with JASDF Naha Air Base, home to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's 9th Air Wing — the westernmost fighter wing in Japan's air-defense network and a strategically critical installation given Okinawa's proximity to Taiwan and mainland China. OKA is a major operating base for JAL, ANA, and their low-cost subsidiaries Peach and Jetstar Japan, plus Skymark Airlines and Solaseed Air. The Tokyo (Haneda)–Naha and Osaka (Itami/Kansai)–Naha route pairs rank among the busiest domestic airline city pairs in Japan and indeed the world. The airport also supports a regional network linking the outlying Ryukyu Islands including Ishigaki, Miyako, Kumejima, Minamidaito, Kitadaito, and Yonaguni, served primarily by Ryukyu Air Commuter (a JAL subsidiary using small turboprops — the only lifeline for many of the smaller islands). International scheduled service includes Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul–Incheon, Busan, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Manila, and Singapore, with Asian carriers including China Airlines, EVA Air, Starlux, Korean Air, Asiana, Jeju Air, T'way Air, Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Airlines, AirAsia, and Philippine Airlines. Okinawa tourism — particularly from Taiwan and mainland China during peak seasons — drives heavy international demand. The airfield has two parallel runways — 18L/36R at 9,840 ft (3,000 m) and 18R/36L at 8,858 ft (2,700 m), the latter opened in 2020 as a newly constructed offshore parallel runway extending OKA's capacity and relieving the single-runway bottleneck that had historically constrained growth. Both runways are asphalt-based. Three terminals operate: the domestic terminal (main building), the international terminal (connected adjacent), and the LCC terminal serving Peach and Jetstar Japan operations. The Yui Rail — the Okinawa Urban Monorail — terminates at the second floor of the domestic terminal, providing one of the few rail connections to any Okinawan city given the island's limited fixed-rail network.