According to the preliminary full-year passenger numbers for 2017 released by the Airports Council International on Monday, HKG remained global 8th with a pax volume of 72,663,955 (up 3.4%), while neighboring CAN climbed to 13th from 15th with 65,887,473 (up 10.3%), the second fastest growing airport in the top ten

Per Chinese press, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport will open its sparkling new Terminal 2 on April 26. The terminal covers a total area of approximately 880,000 sq meters, with a projected handling capacity of 45 million pax per year

The senior management of the airport has expressed explicitly that CAN now must seize the day to compete with HKG in the next couple years for the world's top ten hub airport title, as they are well aware HKG has been hitting capacity constraint due to runway limitations, with its third runway still a bit far in sight for completion not until 2023. Meanwhile, CAN, with Asia's biggest airline China Southern as the base carrier, is already considering construction plans for a fourth/fifth rwy and a third terminal

What do you think of the odds of CAN overtaking HKG in terms of pax volume in the next 5 years? How likely is it for a closely-knit but densely populated region like the Pearl River Delta to have two world-class hubs co-located no more than 150 km away?

Artistic rendering of the newly built T2 of CAN

Perhaps not incidentally, the World Routes Conference 2018 will be held in Guangzhou later this year

Zoedyn wrote:

Meanwhile, CAN, with Asia's biggest airline China Southern as the base carrier, is already considering construction plans for a fourth/fifth rwy and a third terminal

Granted, considerations like uprooting towns and villages are taken care of more easily in the PRC than in the West, but I don't see quite so easy a path to building additional runways at CAN.

CAN can be a very important gateway into China and the region can easily support two large hubs. Considering the international border (okay, not REALLY international, but still a controlled border and choke point) and transport links, it seems about as reasonable as LHR, CDG, and AMS all being major hubs within a couple hundred miles of each other. SZX would be the bigger worry in my mind. But it's still just a staggering number of people in the area so could still work even with all three as major hubs.

One thing I honestly don't know, does CAN suffer from the same random airspace issues that cause so many delays in the rest of the PRC? Regardless, I think they might have a spot for low yielding connections but most people will still have a preference to avoid China for the time being if they can avoid it. I will choose connection points based on what happens if there are IRROPS ans refuse to connect at SVO on SU since I don't have a Russian visa for that reason. I know China has transit without visa now, but I'd still like to do all I can to avoid Chinese bureaucratic personnel.

Assuming HKG grows at 4% annually and CAN grows at 8% annually, CAN should overtake HKG in 2020 (83 million pax at CAN v. 82 million pax at HKG)

Wow, I had no idea they were opening such a huge terminal! With that much extra capacity, CAN should be overtaking HKG by 2019.

ManekS wrote:

Assuming HKG grows at 4% annually and CAN grows at 8% annually, CAN should overtake HKG in 2020 (83 million pax at CAN v. 82 million pax at HKG)

Reasonable estimate...

CAN might enter the top ten in 2020.

I say might as much depends on how much other airports grow.

Lightsaber

Also don’t forget the major FedEx hub at CAN. That’s their hub for Asia-Pacific.

And don’t forget about Shenzhen Airport (SZX), which is located right in between CAN and HKG! Last year it handled 45 million passengers...

Between 63m and 120m people live in the Pearl River Delta. Shenzhen, for example, sprouted out of nothing in 30 years. I think it's reasonable to expect CAN's growth rate to get even faster until the Chinese economy inevitably falters due to the housing bubble and piss poor economic practices of the Chinese government.

ScottB wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

Meanwhile, CAN, with Asia's biggest airline China Southern as the base carrier, is already considering construction plans for a fourth/fifth rwy and a third terminal

Granted, considerations like uprooting towns and villages are taken care of more easily in the PRC than in the West, but I don't see quite so easy a path to building additional runways at CAN.

The fourth runway won't be much of a problem, the fifth though...

But then again, both in Urumqi and Qingdao they have demolished several sq miles of villages, uprooting thousands of residents to make way for airports so...

HKG serves 7 million, CAN serves 150 million

CAN should be WAY larger...

Keep in mind HKG is going to be building a 3rd runway and new terminal. This article states it will up capacity there to 102 million per year.

https://www.airport-technology.com/proj ... expansion/

Zoedyn wrote:

while neighboring CAN climbed to 13th from 15th with 65,887,473 (up 10.3%), the second fastest growing airport in the top ten

EvanWSFO wrote:

Keep in mind HKG is going to be building a 3rd runway and new terminal. This article states it will up capacity there to 102 million per year.

https://www.airport-technology.com/proj ... expansion/

Considering current HKG capacity is 55 million a year and the airport is running at 75 million
I would not take the 102 mark seriously
HKG has always underestimated the potential capacity.

CAN will become bigger
But will it become a global hub

Fedex may have a hub there but HKG thrashes everyone for Cargo

The cool thing is
These three cities must be higher than London now
CAN+HKG+ SZX

Kashmon wrote:

EvanWSFO wrote:

Keep in mind HKG is going to be building a 3rd runway and new terminal. This article states it will up capacity there to 102 million per year.

https://www.airport-technology.com/proj ... expansion/

Considering current HKG capacity is 55 million a year and the airport is running at 75 million
I would not take the 102 mark seriously
HKG has always underestimated the potential capacity.

CAN will become bigger
But will it become a global hub

Fedex may have a hub there but HKG thrashes everyone for Cargo

The cool thing is
These three cities must be higher than London now
CAN+HKG+ SZX

Indeed they are.
London = ~170M
CAN+HKG+SZX=~184M, and this already ignored ZUH (~9M) and MFM (~7M)


Of course...
Population of entire UK = ~56M
Population of PRD = ~54M ("Official" population, not even sure if this counted the migrant workers or not).

So PRD airports still has tons of rooms to grow.

CAN will eventually have more passengers than HKG. That is a foregone conclusion just based on the fact that CAN has lots of domestic passengers and that is driving the growth of the airport. HKG will not be able to match that growth in the long run.

Transfers at CAN or any Chinese airport are arduous, annoying, and time consuming. CAN may be the worst! Understaffed, long queues, multiple layers of document checks and a very thorough security screening is a turn off. The transfer process is much smoother at virtually every other airport in Asia outside China. The Chinese need to take a cue from NRT, ICN, HKG, SIN to see how transfers should be done. A bigger airport at CAN won't entice me to fly through that airport again.

Kashmon wrote:

The cool thing is
These three cities must be higher than London now
CAN+HKG+ SZX

Close, so close! With added runways?
But they river Delta needs the added runway at HKG and CAN. Since no runway is likely at London, it will certainly happen.

I am a little surprised that SEA doesn't have SEA-CAN service with China Southern's 787-8. But maybe in the future.

bzcat wrote:

CAN will eventually have more passengers than HKG. That is a foregone conclusion just based on the fact that CAN has lots of domestic passengers and that is driving the growth of the airport. HKG will not be able to match that growth in the long run.

This is true but I also think that little by little CAN is "stealing" some international traffic from HKG and that trend will keep going on

colortv wrote:

Transfers at CAN or any Chinese airport are arduous, annoying, and time consuming. CAN may be the worst! Understaffed, long queues, multiple layers of document checks and a very thorough security screening is a turn off. The transfer process is much smoother at virtually every other airport in Asia outside China. The Chinese need to take a cue from NRT, ICN, HKG, SIN to see how transfers should be done. A bigger airport at CAN won't entice me to fly through that airport again.

I think the number of passengers transiting between international flights is still rather marginal at this point and I don't think this is really the priority for the Chinese airlines too. If this start to be a priority for growth... you can be sure the transit facilities will improve greatly

cityairline wrote:

And don’t forget about Shenzhen Airport (SZX), which is located right in between CAN and HKG! Last year it handled 45 million passengers...

and don't forget Macau and Zhuhai are also serving the area. Even if the number of passengers there is rather small compare to HKG, CAN and SZX, it still adds up to the total number of passenger in the Pear River delta, and also that's 2 more runways in the region.

Everyone left off Foshan too!

Jetty wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

while neighboring CAN climbed to 13th from 15th with 65,887,473 (up 10.3%), the second fastest growing airport in the top ten

My bad. It should be the second fastest in the top 20, second only to Indira Gandhi International Airport (up 14.1%) in terms of growth rate

HKG will never be able to compete with the sheer number of rising domestic flights that will serve CAN over the coming decade.

hz747300 wrote:

Everyone left off Foshan too!

Might as well include HUZ (Huizhou) while you are there, it is still technically part of PRD region, and actually has way more airlines (FUO = CUA only, HUZ is served by everything from CA to Spring) with more pax (HUZ = 500k, FUO = ~350k-400k)

LupineChemist wrote:

CAN can be a very important gateway into China and the region can easily support two large hubs. Considering the international border (okay, not REALLY international, but still a controlled border and choke point) and transport links, it seems about as reasonable as LHR, CDG, and AMS all being major hubs within a couple hundred miles of each other. SZX would be the bigger worry in my mind. But it's still just a staggering number of people in the area so could still work even with all three as major hubs.

Good point
One country two systems has been promised to remain at work for HK SAR for at least 50 yrs starting from 1997

colortv wrote:

Transfers at CAN or any Chinese airport are arduous, annoying, and time consuming. CAN may be the worst! Understaffed, long queues, multiple layers of document checks and a very thorough security screening is a turn off. The transfer process is much smoother at virtually every other airport in Asia outside China. The Chinese need to take a cue from NRT, ICN, HKG, SIN to see how transfers should be done. A bigger airport at CAN won't entice me to fly through that airport again.

Sadly true and would remain woefully so for a long long time for bigger reasons beyond technicalities

Unlike CX in HKG, the long haul market in CAN is totally dominated by CZ. Not many foreign carrier interested in CAN except the African airline and ST partner

chunhimlai wrote:

Unlike CX in HKG, the long haul market in CAN is totally dominated by CZ. Not many foreign carrier interested in CAN except the African airline and ST partner

To be fair, Guangzhou is mostly a trade center (Especially to 3rd world, which is why it has so many African flights) rather than an international business center (That would be HK or even Shanghai's specialty). HKG with all its problems locally is still a much higher yielding market than CAN or even SZX can ever dream to be.

Zoedyn wrote:

One country two systems has been promised to remain at work for HK SAR for at least 50 yrs starting from 1997

Something that locals at Hong Kong would definitely say otherwise