12/08/2026
Chitose Airport Furano Year-Round Daily Bus Service -- Reservation Guide
As mentioned last week, there is now a daily year-round bus service between Furano and Chitose (Sapporo) Airport. This is a first for Furano. For context, taking the train from Chitose to Furano requires two changes and takes about 3 hours. There is a direct bus service between Chitose and Furano during most of the ski season, but not the rest of the year, meaning you have to route thru Sapporo. So this is big news.
Reservations are only possible online (i.e. not by telephone). You can ride the bus without a reservation if there are open seats. Reservations can be made up to two months in advance.
Japanese websites can sometimes be, er, a bit "challenging", so here is a small tutorial to help you along.
English Reservation page: japanbusonline.com/en
OK, here comes the first tricky part. For some mysterious reason, the Furano route is NOT located under the "Airport Bus" tab (!), but is instead listed under the "Express" tab. In the large alphabetical drop-down menu, find "New Chitose Airport" for either your departure or destination point. Locating "Furano" is easy, but looking for Chitose or Sapporo will be fruitless. It's gotta be "New Chitose" (even though the new remodeled airport opened in 1988!). That's the official name, so gotta roll with it.
Next screen: You'd think that by entering New Chitose and Furano, that only those busses would be listed in the results, and you'd be wrong. The Furano bus is listed waaaaay down near the bottom. Select that route, and we finally arrive at the specific info showing the departure times and number of available seats.
Select your bus, input all the requested info, pay, and you should be good to go. I haven't gone all the way thru the purchase process, so other curious anomalies may crop up. Just keep trying. At least it didn't stall by inputting a non-Japanese phone number.
Note: the phone number helpfully listed on the page is Japanese-speaking only, AND doesn't take reservations anyway, so don't call them.
Also note that these busses do not have a restroom on board, and no bathroom stops are scheduled for the 2-hour trip.
Hope that helps. See you in Furano.
