Japan Airport Terminal Co., Ltd. (JAIRF)

How it makes money

Revenue has two distinct sources. Facility charges are rent-like fees paid by airlines and tenants for using the terminal, landing-adjacent space and check-in counters — steady and tied to long agreements. Merchandise and food and beverage sales come from the company's own duty-free, retail and restaurant operations inside the terminal, which move up and down with the number of passengers, especially international travellers who spend more per visit than domestic ones.

The company's position rests on operating the terminal buildings at one of the world's busiest airports under a government arrangement that a competitor cannot simply bid to replace. That gives it a captive audience of every passenger who passes through Haneda, but the advantage is tied to a single, though very large, location rather than to a brand or technology that travels elsewhere.

Passenger traffic, and especially the higher-margin international and duty-free segment, tracks tourism and business travel, both of which contract sharply in a downturn or a shock like a pandemic and recover only gradually. The company's own results have shown duty-free sales swinging noticeably between strong and weak half-years as inbound tourism patterns shift.