New Chitose opened on July 20, 1988, to replace the adjacent Chitose Airport, a joint-use facility which had served passenger flights since 1963. The airport's IATA airport code was originally SPK. This code was later adopted as a city code to refer to both New Chitose and the smaller Okadama Airport in central Sapporo, which handles commuter flights within Hokkaido. New Chitose became Japan's first 24-hour airport in 1994. Services between 10 PM and 7 AM are currently limited to six flights per day due to noise alleviation concerns. Four of these slots are currently used by passenger flights to Tokyo while the other two are used by cargo flights. New Chitose previously had long-haul service to Amsterdam (KLM, 1997–2002), Cairns (Qantas, 1992–1998 and 2004–2007) and Honolulu (JALWays, 1992–2003, Hawaiian Airlines since 2012). Service to Europe had resumed when Finnair launched a new weekly flight to Helsinki from 15 December 2019, but this service was terminated during the COVID-19 pandemic. International services are mainly for transporting tourists from the rest of Asia and for sightseeing and skiing. The area surrounding gates 0 through 2, on the north end of the main terminal, was a sterile area for international flights until the international terminal opened for service on March 26, 2010. The airport was upgraded with a new VIP lounge and other dedicated facilities for the 34th G8 summit, held in Hokkaido in 2008. Due to the airport's sharing of air traffic control with Chitose Air Base, daytime civil operations are limited to 32 takeoffs and landings per hour, and operations by certain foreign aircraft (including Chinese and Russian aircraft) are prohibited on Mondays and Thursdays. These restrictions were scheduled to be eased in March 2017. A second terminal was built roughly doubling the existing terminal and capacity, completed by August 2019. The second terminal is used to handle international flights.