Kumamoto Airport — Local services in Mashiki

Early July 2025. Small airport. Airport bus took about 40 minutes to reach here. As the counters have opening hours and the international checkin is a small area, I didn’t know where the checkin counters were. I went up to the second floor where the actual departure custom is located. Then I went back to first floor realizing the closed area is actually the checkin counter. I can extrapolate that if the airport is crowded, it might be pretty long queue for airlines without dedicated counters. The international departure has only one duty free shop and one tea room for tea. If you want to shop or eat at restaurants, after the custom, you move to the left into the domestic departure area. Then you have to go through the scanning again when you come back to international departure area. So those pictures you saw about restaurants and shopping belong to the domestic departure area. If you do not have luggage, you may want to explore. I have hand carried stuffs and didn’t want the hassle of baggage check again. So what you see in my photos here are the whole area of international area. That’s all. Two minutes walk one round. If you want shopping, go and pop into local...

The airport is extremely inconvenient for international travellers. Overall experience was terrible and with limited explaination within the airport. Using the Aso Kumamoto Airport was not recommended for international passangers. The new constructed airport consisted of major design flaws. The baggage check would not open one and a half hour (but the boarding closes at at least 30mins prior to the flight) before the boarding time. Within the limited time should you would like to enjoy meal (there is no restaurant within the international flight waiting area), you would have to conduct security check again with no drinks would be brought along. The security check extremely lack of manpower to cater the large inflow of passengers, especially they would have to cater the same group of passengers twice should the passengers would like to dine inside the airport. With the unpleasant experience, I would seriously consider whether to use this...

I used the new Kumamoto Airport. It had evolved into a more beautiful and stylish airport than I had imagined. However, the design of the airport is divided into good and bad. For one thing, it is specialized for air travelers, and the souvenir stores, restaurants, etc., which are much larger than before, are concentrated in the area for check-in and boarding. There are very few souvenir stores and restaurants available for non-flight passengers. There are unusually few free rest areas and chairs. There are very few restrooms as well. ANA, JAL, and credit card holders have been concentrated into only one ASO lounge. I thought it was great the first time I used it, but I wonder if I will use Kumamoto Airport again. I thought it was great this time, but I wondered if I would use Kumamoto...