History
The station opened on 1980-10-01 as Chitose-Kūkō (Chitose Airport) Station, the first JNR airport-connecting station in Japan, timed with the electrification of the Chitose Line. A 248-metre pedestrian bridge originally linked it across National Route 36 to the airport terminal. The Sekishō Line began running from the station on 1981-10-01. Control passed to JR Hokkaido on 1987-04-01. When the new airport terminal opened in 1992 the airport-line branch and Shin-Chitose Airport Station opened on 1992-07-01, and Chitose-Kūkō was renamed Minami-Chitose the same day. Automatic ticket gates entered service on 1998-12-27 and Kitaca IC support followed on 2008-10-25.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
When opened in 1980, the station boasted Hokkaido's first up-only escalator in a railway station, plus an airline-style open-counter ticket booth and a flap-style departure board of the kind then used at Shinkansen stations.