As one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world, China has in recent years seen many of its airports numbered by hundred experience rapid expansion in traffic volume, infrastructure & facilities, and route network. So, this thread is for those interested A.net pals to gain some snapshots of what's going on in the dynamic Chinese aviationscape there, especially those regional hubs outside top cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Welcome to leave yr comments/insights here.

The pic below shows how the top 20 Chinese airports performed in 2017 per the report released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) lately.


This is how the top 20 are geographically spread.


The link is for a full ranking lis for the total 229 airports (airports in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan are not included).
http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-03/08/527 ... b161d9.xls

It's easy to note that these 20 busiest airports are predominantly located in the eastern half part of China, reflecting a pattern of the Chinese population density

Crazy growth, soon every airport in the world top 20 will be either Chinese or Indian.

Not part of the top 20, but it should be noted that Zuhai airport located next to Macau - some see it as n alternative/reliever airport to CAN/SZX - have seen almost 50% growth in the past year from 6 Million pax in 2016 to 9 Million pax in 2017. (ZUH to Guangzhou is about 1h bus + 1h train, to Shenzhen is about 1h bus + 1h ferry)

How did PEK see that much growth in 2017? Due to runway construction they cancelled 300 flights a day for the month a month last spring.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2081490/beijing-airport-repairs-hit-tourism-airline-business

Edit, I see I misread the chart, I thought the total growth was in PEK’s line. 1% growth is probably reasonable even with the hit of cancelling 300 flights a day for a month.

You can see movement at PEK reduced by 1.5% YoY

Nice to see a thread like this! (Very appropriate too as my first post here, finally decided to sign up after years of browsing the forum
I wonder how much of the growth has been driven by new inter-continental routes. MF has been pretty aggressive in that sense, opening up routes from XMN to LAX, SEA, YVR, etc.
Also if you search for a complete ranking, you'd see that some of the highest growth rates are actually for airports currently ranked after 20th. Nanchang (32nd) grew by 39% (I don't think it has any inter-continental routes right now), which makes me slightly disappointed that Fuzhou (28th) only grew by 7.4%. Not sure how well MF's FOC-JFK has been doing, prices always seem to be crazy for that nonstop flight, which makes me wonder how if people would still prefer to take flights with stops. Also, Fuzhou Airlines (an HU subsidiary) didn't really expand last year, despite their initial ambitions.
I found a raking table up to 38th place, would be willing to post it here later.

DrewFOC wrote:

I found a raking table up to 38th place, would be willing to post it here later.

Sorry, ignore my last sentence. Just noticed that OP posted a link to the complete table.

Zoedyn wrote:

It's easy to note that these 20 busiest airports are predominantly located in the eastern half part of China, reflecting a pattern of the Chinese population density

Very true, but there are two exemptions from the rule: Urumqi URC might get a lot of traffic on the base of energy, logistics etc. And the two airports of the "Hawaii of China" (HAK and SYX on Hainan island) should have very few originating passengers because those points are mainly tourist destinations, even for people from many neighboring countries. Competing with the likes of HKT, DPS, GUM, HNL...

DrewFOC wrote:

Nice to see a thread like this! (Very appropriate too as my first post here, finally decided to sign up after years of browsing the forum
I wonder how much of the growth has been driven by new inter-continental routes. MF has been pretty aggressive in that sense, opening up routes from XMN to LAX, SEA, YVR, etc.
Also if you search for a complete ranking, you'd see that some of the highest growth rates are actually for airports currently ranked after 20th. Nanchang (32nd) grew by 39% (I don't think it has any inter-continental routes right now), which makes me slightly disappointed that Fuzhou (28th) only grew by 7.4%. Not sure how well MF's FOC-JFK has been doing, prices always seem to be crazy for that nonstop flight, which makes me wonder how if people would still prefer to take flights with stops. Also, Fuzhou Airlines (an HU subsidiary) didn't really expand last year, despite their initial ambitions. I found a raking table up to 38th place, would be willing to post it here later.

I don't think much of the increase is driven by international flights (let alone inter-continental), the domestic growth in China is huge.
For example, having flown out of Nanchang recently (a surprisingly busy place for somewhere that hardly anyone has heard of), that 39% growth will have been driven by developments like the new terminal and the start of Nanchang based Jiangxi Air which only started operations in 2016 but is now up to 7 x B738s.

Great thread! I've flown into 15 of these 20 airports and the pace of growth is really impressive. It's also remarkable how little discussion there is on this site of Chinese aviation, when it's changing so quickly.

My personal favorite is the new terminal in Wuhan - one of the most spacious and modern I've ever seen, and lots of room for future growth. Trains to the city come right into the terminal, too. Zhengzhou's new terminal is quite impressive as well, although not quite as nice as Wuhan.

GCT64 wrote:

I don't think much of the increase is driven by international flights (let alone inter-continental), the domestic growth in China is huge.
For example, having flown out of Nanchang recently (a surprisingly busy place for somewhere that hardly anyone has heard of), that 39% growth will have been driven by developments like the new terminal and the start of Nanchang based Jiangxi Air which only started operations in 2016 but is now up to 7 x B738s.

Good point! I shouldn't have ignored the domestic growth in China, with all the airport expansions and new startups. FOC is expanding its terminal, which is expected to enter into service later this year. It is also planning to construct a second terminal and second runway, which are expected to be completed in 2022. The city is also planning to build a subway from the city centre to the airport (which is quite far off). Pretty impressive, especially compared with subway construction speeds here in Toronto...

Kilopond wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

It's easy to note that these 20 busiest airports are predominantly located in the eastern half part of China, reflecting a pattern of the Chinese population density

Very true, but there are two exemptions from the rule: Urumqi URC might get a lot of traffic on the base of energy, logistics etc. And the two airports of the "Hawaii of China" (HAK and SYX on Hainan island) should have very few originating passengers because those points are mainly tourist destinations, even for people from many neighboring countries. Competing with the likes of HKT, DPS, GUM, HNL...

URC also serve as a hub to Xinjiang, and to certain extent to neighbouring Central Asian countries

c933103 wrote:

Kilopond wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

It's easy to note that these 20 busiest airports are predominantly located in the eastern half part of China, reflecting a pattern of the Chinese population density

Very true, but there are two exemptions from the rule: Urumqi URC might get a lot of traffic on the base of energy, logistics etc. And the two airports of the "Hawaii of China" (HAK and SYX on Hainan island) should have very few originating passengers because those points are mainly tourist destinations, even for people from many neighboring countries. Competing with the likes of HKT, DPS, GUM, HNL...

URC also serve as a hub to Xinjiang, and to certain extent to neighbouring Central Asian countries

Exactly right. And URC does have significant ties with Central Asian countries (Even with Afghanistan and so forth). For many of those destinations it's easier to go via URC than anywhere else.

CZ is also building URC up as an transit point to many of the secondary European and South Asian destinations, e.g. TBS, IKA, GYD, ISB. since the 738 (and 73G) can reach these destinations with ease. And to many extent it did serve well to their intention.

MIchael

After the establishment of PEK-BEG by Hainan, the Chinese government is working on launching PVG-BEG but there was no mention on which airline will operate these flights. Any guesses? Could it be Hainan again?

After Serbia suspended the visa regime for Chinese citizens, tourist number have been growing by some 250% a month. This year Serbia is expecting some 120.000 Chinese tourists, up from 51.000 in 2017.

DrewFOC wrote:

Nice to see a thread like this! (Very appropriate too as my first post here, finally decided to sign up after years of browsing the forum
I wonder how much of the growth has been driven by new inter-continental routes. MF has been pretty aggressive in that sense, opening up routes from XMN to LAX, SEA, YVR, etc.
Also if you search for a complete ranking, you'd see that some of the highest growth rates are actually for airports currently ranked after 20th. Nanchang (32nd) grew by 39% (I don't think it has any inter-continental routes right now), which makes me slightly disappointed that Fuzhou (28th) only grew by 7.4%. Not sure how well MF's FOC-JFK has been doing, prices always seem to be crazy for that nonstop flight, which makes me wonder how if people would still prefer to take flights with stops. Also, Fuzhou Airlines (an HU subsidiary) didn't really expand last year, despite their initial ambitions.
I found a raking table up to 38th place, would be willing to post it here later.

Agree! A really refreshing thread!! A huge boom we don’t touch on at A.net enough.

I wonder we talk about consolidation a lot in the European, And US context, be great to see a family tree of airlines in China. Each seems to have several small subsidiaries.

With such airspace congestion, and limited traffic space. Surely China must be a prime candidate for the 797?

smi0006 wrote:

DrewFOC wrote:

Nice to see a thread like this! (Very appropriate too as my first post here, finally decided to sign up after years of browsing the forum
I wonder how much of the growth has been driven by new inter-continental routes. MF has been pretty aggressive in that sense, opening up routes from XMN to LAX, SEA, YVR, etc.
Also if you search for a complete ranking, you'd see that some of the highest growth rates are actually for airports currently ranked after 20th. Nanchang (32nd) grew by 39% (I don't think it has any inter-continental routes right now), which makes me slightly disappointed that Fuzhou (28th) only grew by 7.4%. Not sure how well MF's FOC-JFK has been doing, prices always seem to be crazy for that nonstop flight, which makes me wonder how if people would still prefer to take flights with stops. Also, Fuzhou Airlines (an HU subsidiary) didn't really expand last year, despite their initial ambitions.
I found a raking table up to 38th place, would be willing to post it here later.

Agree! A really refreshing thread!! A huge boom we don’t touch on at A.net enough.

I wonder we talk about consolidation a lot in the European, And US context, be great to see a family tree of airlines in China. Each seems to have several small subsidiaries.

With such airspace congestion, and limited traffic space. Surely China must be a prime candidate for the 797?

With 797 appears to be a wide body, I doubt 797 would be their top priority

Wonder how this compares to US airports. Anyone have the stats ready? How many airports >20/25/50/75/90m pax? Total pax top 20 etc?

I don't think inter-continental routes make up much of the growth, especially in absolute terms. Domestic and regional international traffic is what these airport rankings are all about. I think one airport that stands out is Hangzhou HGH with double-digit passenger and solid movement growth and a whopping +21% in cargo. Provincial capitals in Central China also seem to be doing very well, e.g. Xi'an XIY or Zhengzhou CGO.

Blerg wrote:

After the establishment of PEK-BEG by Hainan, the Chinese government is working on launching PVG-BEG but there was no mention on which airline will operate these flights. Any guesses? Could it be Hainan again?

After Serbia suspended the visa regime for Chinese citizens, tourist number have been growing by some 250% a month. This year Serbia is expecting some 120.000 Chinese tourists, up from 51.000 in 2017.

Wow, this is quite the growth! Serbia increasingly appears as an important hub for China's Belt and Road Initiative. China also seems to be pushing red tourism very hard these days and the abolishment of visa requirements certainly helps.

YangFeng wrote:

Blerg wrote:

After the establishment of PEK-BEG by Hainan, the Chinese government is working on launching PVG-BEG but there was no mention on which airline will operate these flights. Any guesses? Could it be Hainan again?

After Serbia suspended the visa regime for Chinese citizens, tourist number have been growing by some 250% a month. This year Serbia is expecting some 120.000 Chinese tourists, up from 51.000 in 2017.

Wow, this is quite the growth! Serbia increasingly appears as an important hub for China's Belt and Road Initiative. China also seems to be pushing red tourism very hard these days and the abolishment of visa requirements certainly helps.

Actually, Serbia is extremely important for China. For example, when the EU slapped China with a 25% tax on steel imports the Chinese bought a steel mill close to Belgrade and have since expanded the facility with the construction of additional mills. Last year the EU introduced additional taxes on Russian, Ukrainian, Brazilian, Iranian... steel but skipped the Serbian one. This means that Chinese steel produced in Serbia is considerably cheaper than the one made by its competitors.

Furthermore, China is funding numerous major construction projects (railway, bridges, highways..) and recently they announced the construction of a massive technological park in one of Belgrade's suburbs.

So these PEK and PVG flights are just a small part of a much larger picture. Basically, Serbia was the first European country to open its doors to Chinese investment back in 2007.

Milka wrote:

Crazy growth, soon every airport in the world top 20 will be either Chinese or Indian.

Couldnt agree more. Current leader is Atlanta with 104 Million Pax per year. That means according to your prediction soon we will have 20 Chinese and Indian airports with more than 104 million pax each per year. Now thats what i call crazy growth indeed.

China Leads the Pack of World’s Fastest-growing Airports
Per research by Routesonline based on preliminary data from travel technology company Sabre, the fastest growing airports in China in 2017 were the following:

1 Zhuhai Jinwan [ZUH] (1) +36.66%
2 Nanchang Changbei [KHN] (2) +34.67%
3 Shijiazhuang [SJW] (3) +32.15%
4 Quanzhou Jinjiang [JJN] (5) +28.16%
5 Hohhot Baita [HET] (6) +27.91%
6 Yinchuan Hedong [INC] (10) +26.16%
7 Tianjin Binhai [TSN] (11) +25.57%
8 Taiyuan Wuxu [TYN] (12) +25.28%
9 Hefei Xinqiao [HFE] (13) +24.72%
10 Yantai Penglai [YTN] (14) +24.28%
11 Beijing Nanyuan [NAY] (16) +23.08%

(international ranking in parenthesis)
https://jingtravel.com/china-leads-the- ... -airports/

Chinese airports of all stripes and cities at various levels are doubtless engaged in a red hot race to stay ahead of one another, whether top-down or bottom-up

This Chinese report says (http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2018-08 ... 5109.shtml) that the government of China's eastern Zhejiang Province has unveiled a blueprint aiming to develop the coastal province into a power in civil aviation, with significant expansion projects planned for Hangzhou Airport, Ningbo Airport, Wenzhou Airport, etc.

Particularly, Hangzhou Airport/HGH is now positioned as an international gateway hub in Asia-Pacific, to be vastly expanded with an additional 4th terminal——big as all 3 current terminals combined, as well as to be greatly enhanced in connectivity with downtown Hangzhou and beyond via the construction of 2 new subway lines, 1 airport express rail line, and a high-speed railway station, targeting global Top 40 status in terms of pax traffic by 2022


For ease of reference and comparison, here's a roundup of some noteworthy up-to-date developments and information on Chinese airports

URC pressing ahead with expansion plan for 2 additional runways

China's Harbin unveils strategic planning to turn HRB into int'l aviation hub, eying links to NYC, ORD, YYZ, LAX, SFO

Central China’s CGO challenges itself to become global cargo hub, as mapped by Strategic Planning 2018-2035

Guangzhou Baiyun Airport Chief: CAN eyes 30 new routes in the next 3 years including CMN, MAD, ORD & BOS

Chengdu targets West China Gateway status with ambitious action plans

CA looking to expand PEK with 4th runway in a bid to develop global super-hub

5th runway at PVG to start commercial operations

Aviation ambitions of interior West China: XIY, KMG, CKG, CTU target world-class airports with rwys ≥4, pax ≥100 million

Top 10 Chinese Airports by Half-Yearly Pax Traffic during Jan-June 2018

New Chengdu Tianfu International Airport (Building works updates + discussions)

Qingdao New Airport (construction updates + features)

Beijing new airport thread (construction developments & discussions)