With Haneda and Narita combined, Tokyo has the third-busiest city airport system in the world, after London and New York.

[10][9] Before the construction of Haneda, the area was a prosperous resort centered around Anamori Inari Shrine, and Tokyo's primary airport was Tachikawa Airfield.

[11] In 1930, the Japanese postal ministry purchased a 53-hectare (130-acre) portion of reclaimed land from a private individual in order to construct an airport.

The first flight from the airport on August 25, 1931, carried a load of insects to Dairen in the Kwantung Leased Territory (now part of China).

[14] The airport's size grew to 72.8 hectares (180 acres) using land purchased by the postal ministry from a nearby exercise ground.

[12] During World War II, both IJA and Haneda Airport shifted to almost exclusively military transport services.

The airport plan was finalized in 1938 and work on the island began in 1939 for completion in 1941, but the project fell behind schedule due to resource constraints during World War II.

Many resettled on the other side of a river in the Haneda district of Ota, surrounding Anamoriinari Station, and some still live in the area today.

[16] The expansion work commenced in October 1945 and was completed in June 1946, at which point the airport covered 257.4 hectares (636 acres).

[17] US military personnel based at Haneda were generally housed at the Washington Heights residential complex in central Tokyo (now Yoyogi Park).

[18] Pan American World Airways made Haneda a stop on its "round the world" route later in 1947, with westbound DC-4 service to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kolkata, Karachi, Damascus, Istanbul, London and New York, and eastbound Constellation service to Wake Island, Honolulu and San Francisco.

The August 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 86 domestic and 8 international departures each week on Japan Air Lines.

Northwest had 16 departures a week, Pan Am had 12 and Canadian Pacific had four; Air France three, KLM three, SAS five, Swissair two and BOAC three.

Taipei and Honolulu flights from Haneda were served by China Airlines and were the airport's only international routes until the early 2000s.

[24] In October 2006, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reached an informal agreement to launch bilateral talks regarding an additional city-to-city service between Haneda and Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport.

In December 2007, Japan and the People's Republic of China reached a basic agreement on opening charter services between Haneda and Beijing Nanyuan Airport.

The cost to construct the five-story terminal building and attached 2,300-car parking deck was covered by a private finance initiative process, revenues from duty-free concessions and a facility use charge of ¥2,000 per passenger.

Both the Tokyo Monorail and the Keikyū Airport Line added stops at the new terminal, and an international air cargo facility was constructed nearby.

[31] In particular, Haneda would offer additional slots to handle 60,000 overseas flights a year (30,000 during the day and 30,000 during late night and early morning hours).

The Keikyu Airport Line, Tokyo Monorail and most bus operators stop running services out of Haneda by midnight, and so passengers landing at night are forced to go by car or taxi to their destination.

[39] The new daytime slots led to increased flight capacity between Tokyo and many Asian markets, but did not have a major effect on capacity between Japan and Europe, as several carriers simply transferred flights from Narita to Haneda (most notably ANA and Lufthansa services to Germany, which almost entirely shifted to Haneda).

[40] In an effort to combat this effect, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport gave non-binding guidance to airlines that any new route at Haneda should not lead to the discontinuation of a route at Narita, although it was possible for airlines to meet this requirement through cooperation with a code sharing partner (for instance, ANA moved its London flight to Haneda while maintaining a code share on Virgin Atlantic's Narita-London flight).

[45] Haneda Innovation City, a new business hub, was built on the site of the old terminal near Tenkūbashi Station and opened on November 16, 2023.

The critical facilities of the airport such as runways, taxiways and aprons are managed by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Due to the airport's position between Yokota Air Base and NAF Atsugi to the west, Narita International Airport to the east, and densely populated areas of Tokyo and Kanagawa to the immediate north and west, most Haneda flights arrive and depart using circular routes over Tokyo Bay.

However, the international departures and check-in hall was closed indefinitely on April 11, 2020, less than two weeks after its opening, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[citation needed] Of these, gate 107 has triple jet bridges, enabling Haneda to technically handle the Airbus A380.

[citation needed] Even so, there are no A380 services regularly scheduled at Haneda due to wake turbulence concerns during busy hours.

In addition, East Japan Railway Company's Haneda Airport Access Line is under construction and will connect Terminals 1 and 2 to central Tokyo by 2031.

[110] Keisei runs direct suburban trains (called "Access Express") between Haneda and Narita in 93 minutes.