China’s airports were back at Routes in Istanbul in force. Mark Pilling talked to several of them about their plans to restore capacity
The target for the dozen Chinese airport groups exhibiting in Istanbul was clear: they want to attract international services back to their destinations, and soon, following the easing of travel restrictions in January this year.
In the short term, competition is fierce between airports to secure overseas carriers that have the aircraft to allocate to China, although few doubt the country’s travel market will soon generate significant traffic flows again.
Just like Routes host Istanbul, Daxing was opened in 2019, months before Covid hit the world. It became the capital’s second mega-airport operating independently of Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) to provide international and domestic services, leading to “balanced competition and complementary strengths” to establish a dual-hub system.
The message from Wang Qiang, Deputy General Manager, Aviation Business Department at Beijing Daxing International Airport, was typical of many of his counterparts. “In 2023 the domestic market has recovered fast,” he said.
Both China Southern and China Eastern have moved their hubs from BCIA to Daxing, which makes the latter more attractive to oneworld Alliance and SkyTeam member airlines respectively.
The airport offers a single terminal for all operations with a domestic minimum connecting time (MCT) of 45 minutes and international MCT of 60 minutes, said Qiang. Increasing the volume of transit traffic at Daxing is a major goal; it has a target of 25% of its total traffic to be transferring passengers by 2025, he said.
Daxing was meeting with many carriers at Routes, seeking to lure them from BCIA with its sparkling new terminal and capacity to grow. So far, British Airways, Etihad and Qatar Airways are among those who have transferred from BCIA to Daxing.
The airport is expecting to handle 40 million passengers in 2023, with only about 2 million of those on international flights.
BCIA, which opened in 1958, reached its peak traffic level in 2019 with 100 million passengers. This fell to just 12.7 million in 2022 but should climb back to 50 million this year, explained Miranda Shi of BCIA’s Aviation Business Department.
One of the advantages of BCIA is its location 25km from Beijing’s city centre, with rival Daxing some 46km away, said Shi. Air China, a member of the Star Alliance, is the airport’s home base flag carrier.
At present, BCIA is seen as the most attractive Beijing airport for the business travel market, said Shi. It has been welcoming international carriers back, with Lufthansa reopening its Munich service in July and United Airlines resuming its San Francisco connection in November.
At the time of Routes, BCIA’s total destination count had reached 205, which is still some way short of the 300 it served in 2019, said Shi.
Chongqing: the magic city
Embraced by the mighty Yangtze River and surrounded by mountains in southwestern China, Chongqing is described as the ‘magic city’. It is the fourth-largest city in the country.
Victor Wenchang, Deputy Routes Development Manager at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, neatly outlined the reason so many Chinese airports were back at Routes: “It is a good thing to see Chinese airports can go abroad and empower Chinese aviation.”
Each city and region have their own selling points, although most are simply huge cities that generate fantastic and growing domestic traffic. The battleground is for faster international capacity growth.
Chongqing is only at 30-40% of its 2019 international traffic levels, which reached over 3 million, said Wenchang. The airport is concentrating on restoring its Asian international network first and then building up intercontinental services from national carriers and others.
AirAsia was the first foreign carrier to restart at Chongqing, with a twice-daily service to Bangkok in March. Chinese carriers have brought back flights to London, Madrid and Rome, while Hainan Airlines will begin serving Paris with 787s in November.
Chongqing is a major domestic tourist destination, and that fact has helped the airport exceed domestic pre-pandemic traffic levels already, said Wenchang. It is expected to handle 45 million passengers this year. However, outbound tourism remains sluggish with locals still cautious about overseas travel, he said.
Plenty of Routes delegates will have fond memories of Chengdu, with the event having been hosted there in 2016. Visitors to this region in the Sichuan Province in western China will have arrived via Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport.
Like several other Chinese cities, Chengdu is developing a dual-hub airport system to ensure it has the air transport network to serve its growing metropolitan area.
Chengdu Shuangliu is now dedicated to domestic services only, with all international flights transferred to the brand-new Chengdu Tianfu International Airport (TFU) in March 2023, explained the airport’s Cici Chen, Vice General Manager of Public Relations.
Chengdu’s new airport opened in 2021 with two terminals and three runways, and its masterplan includes this doubling to four terminals and six runways over time. “This is our first opportunity for TFU to showcase the new airport in Chengdu,” said Chen.
At the time of the interview in Istanbul, TFU had 41 international passenger destinations and eight cargo-only routes. Fifteen of the passenger services, such as the Sichuan Airlines services to Istanbul and London, have begun since March, highlighting the attractiveness of the city and region. And Loong Air will begin a route to Bishket, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, in November, she added.
However, most of TFU’s network comprises domestic services, which will enable the airport to welcome 43 million passengers this year, she explained.
