For the first time in a little over a month, the first commercial aircraft landed in the airport of Sendai, the largest city in the northeast of Japan devastated by a powerful 10-meter high tsunami.

The Japan Airlines (JAL) Express flight which came from Tokyo's Haneda airport, touched down around 8:00 am Wednesday (2300 GMT Tuesday) with staff at the Sendai airport welcoming and waving as passengers emerged from a JAL plane emblazoned with the logo "Hang in there, Japan."

JAL and competitor All Nippon Airlines (ANA) will run six shuttle flights a day between Sendai and Tokyo or Osaka. For now, only one terminal is running but its opening will be a big boost to relief efforts in regional communities virtually obliterated by the tsunami. The airport has been used to ferry in relief supplies by C-130 Hercules transport planes.

The area around the airport, which sits about half a mile from the shoreline, remains a twisted wasteland of mud, uprooted trees and the remnants of smashed buildings and cars.

An ANA spokeswoman said, "Infrastructure at the airport has not been fully restored but we wanted to provide flight services to our customers as early as possible."

"We can only operate in a small area, but I think it's a great step toward recovery," said Naohito Nakano, an operations manager for Japan Airlines.

During the March 11 magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami that engulfed the coast, hundreds of cars, several planes and even houses were washed onto the runway. The terminal building was flooded and fires erupted in the car park and in aircraft hangars.

The opening of the airport will expedite relief operations to an area constrained by road closures and limited train services, which has hampered the relief effort.#30