Japan's newest airport has just one flight (to Seoul)

In an echo of this earlier post on Yangyang's "ghost airport," we have a BBC report that Japan has opened its ninety-eighth airport amid complaints of wasteful spending:

Ibaraki airport cost 22bn Yen ($220m, £147m) to build and is being seen in Japan as a prime example of wasteful public expenditure.

It is located 80km (50 miles) and a long bus ride north of Tokyo.

The airport was conceived as a hub for budget carriers but the check-in counters were almost deserted as operations began.

There is just one plane a day, to South Korea. Another flight, to the Japanese city of Kobe, will begin next month.

The airport has become a symbol of decades of public spending to prop up the economy that has left Japan studded with bridges to nowhere and unneeded dams.

The new centre-left government, which came to power last year, has criticised the links between previous conservative administrations and the construction industry, and vowed to cut waste.

I'm not sure how many jobs are created by building these projects, but then again, I'm not sure of the opportunity costs that go into building them either.

At any rate, I shall check out the one flight to Ibaraki the next time I'm headed for Tokyo. It seems that a lot of Japan's "lesser" airports could arrange more flights to Kimpo (Gimpo) and thus add to their appeal.