The city of Kobe jas named as preferred bidder for the 42-year Kobe airport concession contract the joint venture formed by VINCI Airports, ORIX Corporation and Kansai Airports.

 Opened in 2006 and built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, the Kobe airport is the Kansai region’s third-largest airport. The concession contract is expected to be awarded in the early autumn of 2017, with the joint venture taking over operation in April 2018.

This achievement marks a further step the international expansion of VINCI Airports, the world’s fourth-largest airport operator, and confirms its successful establishment in Japan. Via the Kansai Airports company, VINCI Airports took over the 44-year Kansai International and Osaka Itami concessions on 1 April 2016. The two airports, which handled 40 million passengers in 2016, together form Japan’s second-largest airport facility.

As the leading tourist gateway to Japan, the Kansai region is home to the country’s main tourist centres, including the old imperial city of Kyoto, the port city of Kobe, the commercial and administrative centre of Osaka and the ancient capital city of Nara. The Kansai airports benefit from the robust growth of tourism in Japan as well as the increase in business activity by the low-cost carriers, which are gaining market share.

To support this development, the joint venture aims at operating the three airports – Kansai International, Osaka Itami and Kobe – in an integrated fashion. This will give the Kobe airport the benefit of the other two airports’ resources in order to expand traffic and improve service quality.