Japan Airport Terminal's international duty-free sales rise 7.4% as Haneda's shops post a record first-half profit
Haneda's terminals are as much a shopping centre as an airport, and their operator's first-half profit hit a record as a weak yen and more international passengers pushed duty-free sales higher -- even as a domestic passenger dip and a Narita store closure showed the business isn't growing on every front.
Japan Airport Terminal Co., Ltd. (日本空港ビルデング), which runs the passenger terminals at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, said consolidated revenue rose 5.0% to ¥148.6bn, operating profit rose 29.2% to ¥27.7bn and net profit rose 5.9% to ¥14.2bn in the April–September 2026 half -- each a first-half record -- according to results published 6 November.
Merchandise sales, the company's largest segment, rose 4.3% to ¥78.1bn. Within that, shops serving international flights grew 7.4% to ¥50.7bn, which the company attributes to more passengers -- Haneda's international traffic rose 1.5% in July–September -- and higher spend per traveller, partly crediting a weak yen for duty-free demand. Shops serving domestic flights grew 3.2% to ¥7.9bn even though Haneda's domestic passenger count fell 2% in the same quarter, hit by typhoon cancellations over the Obon and Silver Week holidays; the company points to a renewed HANEDA STAR & LUXE retail area, swapped-in brands and a pop-up event for the character Chiikawa (ちいかわ). Wholesale sales to other airports, hurt by poorer Japan–China relations, fell, leaving "other" sales down 2.4%.
At Narita, the JAPAN DUTY FREE North 2 shop reopened in August with a luxury-skincare-led line-up after refurbishment work that had depressed sales while it was closed, while the company's downtown duty-free store, Japan Duty Free Ginza, closed on 23 September. Haneda's Terminal 1 opened a new north satellite with six boarding gates on 1 September.
From 1 November, when Japan's tax-free scheme switched from a till-side exemption to a post-departure refund method, the company began running a self-service tax-refund service co-developed with Glory Ltd. (グローリー株式会社) at Haneda, Narita and Naha airports.
Net income grew far more slowly than operating profit because tax expense was booked at some subsidiaries once use of their tax-loss carryforwards became likely -- a non-operating item that left net income below the company's own first-half plan, it said.
On stronger passenger and exchange-rate assumptions, full-year guidance was raised: revenue to ¥304.7bn from ¥296.7bn, operating profit to ¥51.5bn from ¥45.6bn, and net income to ¥25.8bn from ¥24.2bn.
The profit record is the headline, but the split underneath it is the more useful read: the divide between a thriving international shop floor and a softer domestic one, and the coincidence of a downtown duty-free closure and a new self-service refund scheme launching in the same half, say more about how inbound retail at Japan's gateway airports is actually changing shape than the growth rate alone.
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