In the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's civil aviation market reshaped the new pattern of cities in the recovery.
A few days ago, CADAS (Civil Aviation Data Analysis System under the Civil Aviation Resource Network) released the "2021 China Civil Aviation Annual Statistical Report - Airport Ranking", which roughly counts the passenger throughput rankings of major airports in 2021.
According to the Statistical Report, in 2021, 248 airports in Chinese mainland completed the passenger throughput of 907 million passengers, an increase of 5.9% over 2020 and recovered to 67.1% in 2019. Despite the poor environment, the pace of urban racing has not stopped:
The top three formations of urban airport traffic were broken. With the official opening of Chengdu Tianfu Airport, Chengdu replaced Guangzhou as the third in the country for the first time. Since then, the top three city airport traffic cities have been "double airport" cities.
The echelon competition in the rankings of 10 to 20 is even more intense. Changsha instead of Zhengzhou ranked among the top ten in the country and the first in the central region; Wuhan made a strong recovery, crossing ten positions to 11th place; Urumqi advanced 7 places to 16th place; Xiamen retreated seven places and narrowly held the 20th place.
Qingdao is located in the heart of China, Japan and South Korea, and Qingdao Airport is an important gateway to Japan and South Korea. Under the unfavorable situation of the epidemic raging overseas and the significant reduction in the number of international passengers, it is not easy to maintain the 18th place in passenger throughput and 14th place in cargo and mail throughput.
Airports are the most important "traffic entrance", and large traffic means real popularity, business opportunities and vitality. In the context of accelerating the construction of the "double cycle" pattern, traffic is an important indicator to observe the smoothness of double circulation in a city. Looking at The country, cities are participating in a new round of competition at a speed that is visible to the naked eye. Qingdao is also actively taking action to seize opportunities and brew breakthroughs.
In August last year, Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport completed the transfer and operation. As the first 4F airport with the highest civil aviation level in Shandong, compared with the 4E class Liuting Airport, the software and hardware facilities have been iteratively upgraded. In time, with the release of production capacity and the development of the hinterland, this new airport will certainly have a profound and significant impact on Qingdao's urban pattern, open development, and energy level improvement.
From the perspective of the city, Qingdao shoulders a series of national responsibilities such as building an "international comprehensive transportation hub city" and building a modern airport cluster with hub airports as the backbone. In the "14th Five-Year Plan" Civil Aviation Development Plan (hereinafter referred to as the "Planning")," which was just released, Qingdao has also been mentioned many times.
This is a responsibility and an opportunity. Qingdao should seize the opportunity, find the breakthrough point and concentrate its efforts, complete the transformation from a regional hub to an international hub, and win the initiative in the new round of urban competition.
01 The airport traffic pattern has been reshaped, and Chengdu has ranked among the top three
In 2021, the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the aviation industry still exists, but compared with 2020, the aviation industry is gradually warming, and there is no shortage of bright spots in the domestic airport throughput rankings.
The top 10 airports in terms of passenger throughput are Guangzhou Baiyun, Chengdu Shuangliu, Shenzhen Bao'an, Chongqing Jiangbei, Shanghai Hongqiao, Beijing Capital, Kunming Changshui, Shanghai Pudong, Xi'an Xianyang and Hangzhou Xiaoshan.
This lineup is in line with 2020, with a slight change in the ranking: Shanghai Hongqiao, which achieved a growth rate of 6.4%, surpassed Beijing Capital and Kunming Changshui, rising from seventh to fifth; Shanghai Pudong, which achieved a 5.5% increase, surpassed Xi'an Xianyang, rising from ninth to eighth.
In addition, although Guangzhou Baiyun Airport continued to rank first in the country for a row, with a passenger throughput of about 40.231 million passengers, it fell by 8.1% year-on-year, and it was only less than 100,000 passengers ahead of the second place Chengdu Shuangliu Airport. In 2020, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport led Chengdu Shuangliu Airport by more than 3 million passengers. This change is related to a wave of epidemics in Guangzhou in May and June last year.
At present, the new pattern of urban airport traffic is being reshaped.
If the city is used as a unit, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu with dual international airports are in the top three, and Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Kunming, Xi'an, Hangzhou and Changsha rank fourth to tenth respectively. Among them, the passenger throughput of Shanghai and Beijing airports exceeded 60 million passengers and 50 million passengers respectively, the passenger throughput of Chengdu and Guangzhou was in the order of 40 million passengers, and the passenger throughput of Shenzhen, Chongqing, Kunming and Xi'an was in the order of 30 million passengers.
Chengdu's performance is the most eye-catching. As early as 2019, Chengdu had only one shuangliu airport, and its passenger throughput ranked fourth in the country. By 2020, Chengdu Shuangliu Airport will rank second in the country. On June 27, 2021, Tianfu International Airport was officially opened to traffic, making Chengdu the third city in mainland China to have a dual international airport. Tianfu Airport, which has been open for half a year, has completed a passenger throughput of 4.34 million passengers, ranking 47th in the country, plus the 40.14 million passengers of Shuangliu Airport, and the two major airports in Chengdu have completed a total passenger throughput of 44.48 million passengers, surpassing Guangzhou and ranking third in the country.
Although Tianfu Airport diverted part of the passenger traffic of Shuangliu Airport, the number of seats at Shuangliu Airport did not decline, and the total traffic of the two major airports also increased, and Chengdu became a proper big winner, showing the city's strong endogenous power.
Another big change in the top ten camps came from Zhengzhou and Changsha. Affected by the double impact of heavy rain and the epidemic, Zhengzhou failed to retain the throne of the top ten in the country and the first place in the central region, and was replaced by Changsha.
This is the second time that Changsha Airport has ranked first in the central region after a gap of four years. In the past decade, the airport passenger throughput competition in the three central provincial capitals of Zhengzhou, Changsha and Wuhan has been fierce. Before 2016, the ranking of the three cities was basically Changsha, Wuhan and Zhengzhou, which became Zhengzhou, Changsha and Wuhan in 2017-2020, and Changsha, Wuhan and Zhengzhou again in 2021. At present, their passenger throughput is not much different, and the competition in the future is still fierce.
02 The new airport is powerful, and Qingdao is stable
Qingdao's performance was decent.
In 2020, Qingdao Liuting Airport handled 14.562 million passengers and 207,000 tons of cargo and mail, ranking 19th and 14th in the country respectively.
In 2021, the passenger throughput of Qingdao Airport was 16.028 million passengers, and the single airport ranked 20th in the country, down one place; The cargo and mail throughput is 238,000 tons, ranking 14th in the country.
In terms of ranking, Qingdao basically retained its original position. In the current situation, it is not easy for Qingdao to get such results.
In the past two years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the number of international flights has decreased sharply, and airports with a large proportion of international passengers have also been greatly affected, such as Beijing's Capital Airport and Shanghai's Pudong Airport. In 2019, the number of international passengers at Qingdao Liuting Airport reached 4.13 million, ranking 8th in the country. The impact of the outbreak on Qingdao Airport can be imagined.
Looking at this hard-won achievement, you can also find some signs of a trend.
The passenger throughput of Qingdao Airport increased by 10.1% over 2020, a considerable increase.
Even if the air passenger transport market as a whole is in a period of recovery in 2021, among the top 20 camps in terms of passenger throughput of urban airports, only Wuhan, Urumqi, Beijing and Tianjin have a growth rate of more than Qingdao. It is this growth rate that helps Qingdao Airport rank 18th in the national city ranking and 5th in the north.
The growth rate of Qingdao's cargo and mail throughput is more powerful, an increase of 14.9% over 2020.
In 2021, the air cargo market as a whole performed well. The reason is that in the case of the global economy and supply chain affected by the epidemic, major airports have expanded international freight routes and "passenger to cargo" waypoints to create efficient and convenient transportation channels and promote cargo and mail throughput to a new level. Qingdao, on the basis of the three all-cargo aircraft routes in Tokyo, Chicago and Liege, opened all-cargo aircraft and "passenger-to-cargo" flights to North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia during the year, and the number of international cargo destinations reached 11.
Behind the good traffic trend of Qingdao airport, in addition to some common factors, the personality factor of airport transfer operation is very critical.
On August 12, 2021, Qingdao Liuting Airport, which has accompanied Qingdao people for 39 years, was officially closed, and at the same time, Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport was transferred to operation.
Before the transfer, due to the lack of bearing space, overloaded operation of facilities and equipment, and tight airspace resources, Qingdao Airport faced two major shortcomings: one is that the function of the transit hub is not strong, and the other is that the competitiveness of air logistics is weak.
Taking advantage of the situation, Jiaodong Airport broke the "hardware" bottleneck, accelerated the filling of shortcomings, and cultivated new competitiveness.
Compared with the 4E-class Liuting Airport, the 4F-level Jiaodong Airport terminal and flight area have been more than 4 times larger, and the functions and "hardware" facilities have been iteratively upgraded. From the perspective of throughput, it is planned that by 2025, Jiaodong Airport can meet the support needs of 35 million passengers, 500,000 tons of cargo and mail throughput, and 300,000 aircraft take-offs and landings.
At present, the effect of the new airport is gradually emerging.
According to Qingdao Airport Group, since the transfer of Qingdao Airport, the function of cargo transit hub has been further released. In 2021, the internationally regulated cargo volume of Qingdao Airport, including transit cargo, exceeded 100,000 tons for the first time. Among them, in October and November 2021, the volume of internationally supervised goods exceeded 10,000 tons for two consecutive months, reaching a record high.
Not only air cargo, but also passenger throughput is getting better. In the first month of the transfer of Jiaodong Airport, a total of 980,000 passengers were handled and 9,428 flights took off and landed; On the first day of the Spring Festival on January 17, Jiaodong Airport guaranteed 338 flights, an increase of 100% year-on-year. It is expected that during the entire Spring Festival period (January 17, 2022 to February 25, 2022), the passenger throughput will reach 1.44 million, and the number of flights will take off and land 13,700.
03 Find the right positioning, fly higher and higher
There is no winter that will not pass.
The "Planning" jointly issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport divides the development of civil aviation into two stages. 2021-2022 is a recovery period and a savings period, and 2023-2025 is a period of growth and release. Seeking opportunities in the current crisis, accelerating the pace of airport planning and construction, and becoming the choice of many cities to seize airport traffic:
The "14th Five-Year Plan" for the comprehensive transportation development of Hangzhou clearly proposes to build an airport hub at the gateway to the Asia-Pacific region, promote the reconstruction and expansion of Xiaoshan International Airport with the configuration of "100 million passengers and four runways", and start the strategic planning research of Hangzhou Second Airport;
In the 2022 government work report of Foshan City, it is proposed to fully promote the preparation of the Pearl River Delta hub (Guangzhou new) airport and strive to start construction of the airport earthworks within this year;
The Jiangsu Provincial Transportation Work Conference proposed that in 2022, "all efforts will be made to promote suzhou's planning and construction of civil transport airport related matters";
……
According to the Plan, there are as many as 140 key transport airport projects during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, including 34 continuation projects, 39 newly started projects, and 67 preliminary work projects.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" is also a window of opportunity for Qingdao to "take off" again.
Qingdao has a unique location advantage and is at the center of the key strategic "cross". In February 2021, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Outline of the National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning, which entrusted Qingdao with the heavy responsibility of accelerating the construction of an international comprehensive transportation hub city.
The "14th Five-Year Plan for the Comprehensive Transportation Development Plan of Shandong Province" proposes to build a modern airport cluster with hub airports as the backbone; Support Qingdao Airport to build an international hub airport; Led by Qingdao Airport, we will build a four-type airport of "safety, green, wisdom and humanity".
Recently, the state issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" Modern Comprehensive Transportation System Development Plan, which positions Qingdao as a comprehensive transportation hub and an international gateway city.
This series of strategic positioning means that the energy level and traffic of Qingdao Airport will achieve a new leap forward.
How to seize the opportunity to complete the leap? Qingdao is mentioned many times in the "Planning", and it also points out the direction of Qingdao's development.
In the chapter of "Opening Up a New Situation of Opening Up to the Outside World", the "Planning" mentions that it is necessary to serve the new development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation and promote the deeper opening up of civil aviation in key areas. Among them, it optimizes the function of Qingdao's regional aviation hub and supports the construction of the China-SCO local economic and trade cooperation demonstration zone.
Qingdao is not only a "dual-node" city with internal and external circulation, but also a "double-node" city with a large cycle of east-west, north-south and north-south circulation in China. Jiaodong Airport will inevitably provide an important "power source" for Qingdao to highlight the value of "double nodes" in the new development pattern.
Helping to build the SCO Demonstration Zone is one of the "power sources". As an "important window" for open exchanges between China and the SCO countries, the SCO Demonstration Zone carries the strategic responsibility of the state to build a new platform for international cooperation along the "Belt and Road". With the opening of Jiaodong Airport, the "sea-rail" intermodal transport will be upgraded to the "sea, land, air and rail" combined transport, and bilateral and multilateral trade cooperation with the SCO countries will be more convenient, more efficient and more dynamic; Offshore trade, bonded maintenance, overseas warehouses and other new foreign trade formats will continue to emerge; International exchanges will become more frequent, personnel exchanges will be closer, and the construction of commercial tourism and cultural centers will be further accelerated.
Qingdao should take this as a breakthrough and focus on the transformation from a regional hub airport to a "world-class, domestically leading" Northeast Asia international hub airport, with a higher vision and hierarchical service SCO demonstration zone construction, while completing the strategic responsibility, seize the traffic "rise" opportunity, and realize the dream of Qingdao and even Shandong to build a new highland for opening up to the outside world.
The author | Changting planned | silence