Location Shift to Non-metropolitan Regions in the Aircraft Industry:

A Case Study of Yamagata Prefecture

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the commercial aircraft industry shifts the location to non-metropolitan regions. Prior to World War II, many aircraft companies agglomerated in the Chubu, Kansai, and Tokyo metropolitan areas of Japan. However, Japanese aircraft companies and suppliers in these three metropolitan areas have begun to disperse into non-metropolitan areas. As the location behavior in the commercial aircraft industry depends on the production system, some prime manufacturers in the commercial aircraft industry, such as Boeing, have changed their way of ordering, in particular, with the production of the B787.

The aircraft industry has many factories in these three metropolitan regions of Japan. However some local municipalities have sought to attract aircraft suppliers. As a result, aircraft companies have been able to use some products from the regional production system located in Iida (Nagano Prefecture), Niigata, and Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture). According to a case study of the Yamagata Prefecture, there were 27 aircraft industry companies in Yamagata Prefecture in March 2018. A number of small- and medium-sized companies entered the industry in Yamagata Prefecture after 2010.