The opening of a new airport in China’s southern Guangdong province today will help to accelerate the development of a world-class airport cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which is currently under construction.
The Zhanjiang Wuchuan Airport, which is situated in the southwest of Guangdong and has superseded the former Zhanjiang Airport, which was completed in 1936, has become the primary gateway to the province.
According to Yicai Global, the new airport is classified as a 4E domestic trunk airport, which means it can accommodate wide-body jets like as the Airbus A330 and Boeing 777 as well as direct flights to Europe and the United States, among other things. In addition, its facilities are meant to accommodate 5.1 million people and 30,000 tons of freight every year, according to the company.
Guangdong’s Zhanjiang Wuchuan Airport is one of the province’s four regional aviation hubs, and it will be a significant contributor to the economic growth of the province’s western region.
As part of a plan unveiled in January, the Chinese province of Guangdong will develop a civil transportation system that will include three international hub airports, four regional hub airports, and eight branch airports. The province will also collaborate with the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao to develop a world-class airport cluster.
In addition, a number of airport expansion projects are now underway in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is expected to be completed by 2025. The third phase of the development of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport started in September 2020 and will be completed by 2025. The construction of a third runway at Hong Kong International Airport is now underway and is projected to be completed in 2024.
According to Lin Jiang, an economics professor at Sun Yat-sen University’s Lingnan College and a member of the Bay Region Airports Association, the density of airports in the bay area is rather high. As a result, they must develop their own distinct posture and wisely spend resources in order to prevent fierce rivalry, according to Lin.
Lin pointed out that Zhanjiang Wuchuan Airport, which primarily serves domestic flights, could prioritize the development of logistics in order to serve as the bay area’s freight station for the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, among other destinations.
According to statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the bay area’s airports, excluding those in Hong Kong and Macao, completed a total passenger throughput of 87.2 million in 2021, a 4.6 percent decrease from 2020, with an annual freight throughput of 3.7 million tons, a 14.2 percent increase from 2020.
