Holidaymakers who spent their summer vacations outside Japan are flying back in droves to a major airport serving Tokyo.

The operator of Narita Airport says the rush is peaking on Sunday, when there are more than 36,000 arrivals expected.

At the international arrival lobby on Sunday morning, passengers carrying large baggage were coming out one after another.

A woman who visited Singapore said it was refreshing there, as temperatures in the city stood just below 30 degrees Celsius or so.

Another woman who came back from Australia also cited temperature differences, as Japan is experiencing a series of severely hot days while Oceania is in the winter.

A man who came back from Switzerland said he made his first overseas trip in four years. He said his work starts on Monday and he needs to snap out of his holiday mood.

It was Japan's first summer holiday season since the Japanese government downgraded COVID-19 to the same category as seasonal influenza.

The airport operator estimates that, from August 10 through Sunday, about 770,000 people use the facility for international flights, which is 3.6 times the figure from the same period last year.

But the firm said it is still around 70 percent of the figure from 2019, before the spread of the coronavirus.