Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is a new airport under construction in the provincial capital city of Chengdu in Southwest China’s inland Sichuan Province (population: approx 80 million). The name Tianfu is derived from the popular Chinese nickname for Sichuan Province, meaning the land of abundance

The airport is approx 50 km southeast to downtown Chengdu, up to Code 4F standard capable of handling jumbos like A380/B748

Building works began from mid-2016. The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion by the end of 2019, with a total investment of CNY77 billion (US$ 11 billion), including a 608,000 sqm terminal building, and 3 runways

In the long-term, another 3 runways would be added, and the terminal area would be increased to 980,000 sqm

The airport's designed pax handling capacity is at 40 million for the initial stage, and at 90 million when fully operational long term

Like some other newly-built Chinese airports such as Beijing's Daxing Airport and Qingdao's Jiaodong Airport, special efforts again have been made during the planning and construction of the new airport to enable seamless interchange with multiple modes of transportation including high-speed railways, inter-city express railways, urban light rails, expressways, etc.

Particularly, a newly-built HSR linking Chengdu and Kunming (the capital city of neighboring Yunnan Province) would pass beneath the airport with a stopover there

Tianfu Airport is scheduled for opening in 2020

Worth mentioning that Chengdu is going to be served by two major hub airports once Tianfu opens, as the current Shuangliu International Airport/CTU, much closer to downtown Chengdu in the southwest, will continue to operate (CTU handled approx 50 million pax in 2017, 4th busiest airport in mainland China behind PEK, PVG, CAN)

Chengdu would therefore become the 3rd mainland Chinese city hosting two international airports after Shanghai, Beijing, something quite rare among the many tier-2 cities of China


An artistic rendering of Chengdu Tianfu International Airport


Location of Tianfu Airport relative to CTU and downtown Chengdu

How will they split the traffic between the two airports ? Domestic international ? By alliance ?

The777Man

http://www.scdrc.gov.cn/wap/c100003/201 ... d4ec.shtml

On Sept 17, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for starting the construction of Sichuan Airlines’ base at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

The base would have a 620,000 square meters built-up area, involving a total investment of approx 950 million USD for facilities in crew stationing, integrated office buildings, aircraft MRO, cargo operations, in-flight catering, etc.

The 1st phase of the project is to have a 340,000 sq meters built-up area, due for completion by 2020 when Tianfu Airport is scheduled to open

Will the new Chengdu Tianfu International Airport be able to open for commercial traffic duly on time?

Surely it is a far less significant project as opposed to Beijing’s Daxing Airport, given how little media coverage there has been in the Chinese press on Tianfu’s construction updates and developments. That doesn’t bode well for its on-time completion







Pics courtesy of local newspaper Chengdu Daily

The777Man wrote:

How will they split the traffic between the two airports ? Domestic international ? By alliance ?

The777Man

So far the Chinese authorities haven’t given any instructions on how Chengdu’s two airports would operate when Tianfu opens

But there seems to be quite a bit of Chinese online discussion on the issue. A popular view is to split by domestic/international division: CTU chiefly for domestic/regional and shorthaul international traffic due to its obvious proximity to downtown Chengdu, while Tianfu——approx 3 times as far as CTU is from downtown Chengdu——mostly for international traffic, esp intercontinental longhauls, and for LCC traffic as well

Zoedyn wrote:

But there seems to be quite a bit of Chinese online discussion on the issue. A popular view is to split by domestic/international division: CTU chiefly for domestic/regional and shorthaul international traffic due to its obvious proximity to downtown Chengdu, while Tianfu——approx 3 times as far as CTU is from downtown Chengdu——mostly for international traffic, esp intercontinental longhauls, and for LCC traffic as well

I assumed they will opt for a split like the one in Shanghai. Shuangliu would handle domestic traffic and business-focused international flights, like Hongqiao does. Tianfu would handle longhaul flights, LCCs, and a selection of domestic flights aimed at connecting passengers. That's been the arrangement in Shanghai for almost 20 years, although Hongqiao is twice as big as it was in 1999, and Pudong has grown beyond anyone's expectations. Chengdu is a smaller city and there's not much population in the direction of Tianfu, so it would certainly be risky to allow too much traffic to remain at Shuangliu.

Chengdu doesn't need a second airport. What a waste of money. LHR manages 75m+ pax/year with two runways. CTU has two runways and room to grow.

sincx wrote:

Chengdu doesn't need a second airport. What a waste of money.

The country needs that so it can report GDP growth. 50% of China's GDP is "investments", which is way higher than most other countries with a large economy.

Had a tour and presentation there last year!

raylee67 wrote:

sincx wrote:

Chengdu doesn't need a second airport. What a waste of money.

The country needs that so it can report GDP growth. 50% of China's GDP is "investments", which is way higher than most other countries with a large economy.

It isn't that high, but it is too high investing for growth. 8% of GDP or so should be to grow GDP (includes new housing, new schools, new roads, new factories or rebuilt factories, expanded road, rail, canals/docks, and airports).

CTU needs another runway. LHR has decades of slow growth the eek out a few more flights.

Normally I'm pro-Airport growth. This is at a poor location. It is better to have a mega airport such as ATL drawing traffic within 75 minutes of travel.

This is a make work project. If any nation is pushed out of CTU and their airline ceases operations, they can, with cause, ban Chinese flights. No airline will give up Beijing, but Tier 2 cities aren't so popular.

London only compares to a few markets. They also have 5 alternative airports: BHX, LGW, STN, LTN, and LCY. Comparing to what works in the global leader Metropolitan area for O&D traffic to a Tier 2 city makes no sense to me. Tier 2 cities top out at 25 to 30 million pax per runway and CTU is there. Heck, most tier 1 do also. Or are we suggesting CTU and LHR have similar premium demand that funds so much of the operations? PEK, PVG, HND, SIN, and JFK/EWR might be compared to LHR, but I end the list with FRA as a honorable mention as it takes paying business and first class.

Everyone else will only fly at preferred times and prices. If either is made undesirable, business goes elsewhere.

This is a jobs program.

Lightsaber

http://news.163.com/18/1219/10/E3CQNC1R ... obile.html
Air China seems to bet big on Tianfu Airport, as the report says its large-scale building works for its regional hub at the new airport kicked off construction with a groundbreaking ceremony on Dec 18th, and the carrier would deploy 80-100 aircrafts in Chengdu by 2020, and 180 by 2025


Some artistic renderings of Tianfu Airport



Photos via VisualChina

sincx wrote:

Chengdu doesn't need a second airport. What a waste of money. LHR manages 75m+ pax/year with two runways. CTU has two runways and room to grow.

LHR is fundamentally different from CTU... CTU is a mainly domestic airport until very recently, while LHR has more destinations to China than to UK itself. Also, if you would bother to look at the satellite map of CTU, it is actually out of space, otherwise nobody’s gonna put 2nd runway in that shape.

Remember, you have stansted and Luton and Gatwick and city airport to sustain cheap short hauls, while CTU have none of them. You absolutely need no new airport if your goal is to keep internationals here only.

Zoedyn wrote:

So far the Chinese authorities haven’t given any instructions on how Chengdu’s two airports would operate when Tianfu opens

But there seems to be quite a bit of Chinese online discussion on the issue. A popular view is to split by domestic/international division: CTU chiefly for domestic/regional and shorthaul international traffic due to its obvious proximity to downtown Chengdu, while Tianfu——approx 3 times as far as CTU is from downtown Chengdu——mostly for international traffic, esp intercontinental longhauls, and for LCC traffic as well

That would kill the whatever tiny of amount of international transfer traffic they have there and let KMG auto-win the Southwest International Hub fight

It looks like a nice design.

It could well be split by airline group, with Air China taking the lead at the new airport, and Sichuan airlines staying at the current airport. It would then be up to the other airlines where they saw their needs being best suited, but that also might depend on the cost to operate at either airport.

I would suspect that LCC’s would be attracted to the new airport if it was cheaper to operate to, but the freed up space at the current airport should help to create a less constrained facility there too in a closer location to the central city.

It may take time to find the best position for both airports, just as it will be interesting to see it play out in Beijing.

https://i.carnoc.com/detail/485435

It has been officially disclosed how flights will be split btwn Chengdu’s two airports— Shuangliu/CTU and the new Tianfu (scheduled to open in H1 2021), according to the head of Development and Reform Commission of Sichuan Province in a TV interview during China’s on-going Two Sessions in Beijing

The new airport after its opening will operate all new additional international flights as well as existing international flights transferred from CTU

The old airport will retain a portion of regional flights to HK/MO/TW as well as some domestic flights on premium routes (which are understood to be the likes of BJS/SHA/CAN/SZX etc), and won’t see any international ops until some time later deemed appropriate by the authorities

So this plan is practically a copy of PVG vs SHA scenario in Shanghai

One thing I can say is the Chinese don't hold back with these projects......they build big and nice looking buildings

Saw some rumor that say the airport is expected to open on May 31, 2021

Sichuan government officer reportedly claimed on Television that Tianfu and CTU will split routes in a manner similar to SHA/PVG, international routes out of CTU will be moved to Tianfu, while CTU will keep regional routes and some boutique domestic routes.
The officer also said that when time is right, international routes out of CTU can be restarted