CCTV News: During the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday just past, the reporter found that the popularity of the aviation market in third- and fourth-tier cities increased significantly. According to online travel platform data, the number of air ticket bookings to cities with regional airports this holiday is higher than before the epidemic, and the number of air ticket bookings in cities such as Hainan Qionghai, Xinjiang Shache, and Heilongjiang Mohe has increased by more than 2 times.
Small airports "leverage" large markets
Regional airports refer to airports with an annual passenger throughput of less than 2 million person-times, and the routes opened are mainly routes connected to provincial capital airports or neighboring hub airports. The reporter found that with the frequency of regional airport routes, the transformation of hub airports is convenient. Routes are connected to an aviation network, and they are becoming more and more dense, so that the accessibility of third- and fourth-tier cities continues to improve, which also directly drives many niche tourist destinations to "burst out of the circle" and become new economic growth points.
Early in the morning, tour guide Li Song and a dozen companions held up pick-up signs and waited for arriving passengers at Yanji Chaoyangchuan International Airport.
Li Song told reporters that he has been a tour guide for more than ten years, and this year is the largest year for tourists. Yanji is located on the border of China and North Korea, with unique tourism resources. Due to its remote location, the airport is the fastest link to other urban areas. In the early days of its operation, Yanji Airport only had two routes: Shenyang and Changchun. In recent years, the airport has successively opened routes to Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and other hub airports.
The gradual enrichment of the route network and the constantly refreshing number of tourists have also brought new development opportunities to the local tourism industry. Many travel agencies have adopted the method of adjusting tourists' itinerary plans according to the flight schedules in and out of the airport, and flexibly arrange travel itineraries.
The small airport not only brings tourists to Yanji, but also brings huge market opportunities. In the first half of this year, Yanji received 4.099 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 386%, and tourism revenue was 5.542 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 678%.
Trunk and branch interconnection Aviation logistics base helps regional economic development
The route network with trunk and branch connections not only allows small airports to stimulate the tourism market, but also makes air logistics and transportation efficient and smooth, promoting regional economic development.
At 11 o'clock in the evening, the reporter saw in the cargo station of Xingdong Airport in Nantong that a group of hairy crabs that had just been listed were preparing to unload the truck for security inspection.
The staff told reporters that at present, Nantong Xingdong Airport has more than 20 passenger and cargo airlines operating on the spot, at night is the peak period of freight, hundreds of workers are busy nervously, after sorting and security inspection, classified and packed, barge and loading, just half an hour later, this full freighter destined for Beijing, entered the runway to be ready to fly.
The reporter learned that air cargo has unique advantages in high value-added, high-timeliness cargo transportation, etc., in addition to fresh agricultural products, it is also the first choice for high-end manufacturing.
This is the largest electronic semiconductor enterprise in Nantong, since the beginning of this year, the company has transported nearly 200 tons of products to upstream and downstream enterprises in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other places by air freight, greatly saving time and logistics costs.
In recent years, Nantong Xingdong Airport has continuously expanded new air and land transit services and built an important aviation logistics base in the north wing of the Yangtze River Delta. From January to August this year, the airport completed a cumulative cargo and mail throughput of 31,943.75 tons, an increase of 25.6% over 2019, providing strong support for promoting regional economic development.
"Trunk and branch connectivity" to build a high-quality aviation network
At present, more than 70% of the airports in the mainland are regional airports, which are like "capillaries", with the hub airport as the core, radiating and connecting various prefectures, cities and states. However, due to the high dependence on the connection with the hub airport, and the resources, such as routes, schedules, and air traffic rights of the hub airport, are very tight, this has caused the development bottleneck of the regional airport's single route structure and small flight volume. In order to break this bottleneck of development, in recent years, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has vigorously promoted the construction of the "trunk branch and full network" aviation network, and created an efficient and connected air transport network by promoting the interconnection of trunk lines, branch lines and general airports, and the interconnection of routes.
On December 1, 2022, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) took the lead in launching a pilot in Yunnan to promote the construction of a service model of "trunk branch connectivity and full network connection". It has formed an airport network system with Kunming Airport as the hub, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna and Mangshi airports as important nodes, and other regional airports supporting each other. Liu Zhao, a tourist from Beijing, who often travels between Lijiang and Xishuangbanna, has a deeper feeling for the convenience brought by the "trunk branch and full network connection" to everyone's travel.
By building a circle flight route, Mangshi, Xishuangbanna, Dali and other states and cities are connected together, and the total number of circular flight routes reaches 26 during peak periods, basically achieving full coverage of regional airports in Yunnan Province.
To open up the breakpoints and blocking points of travel, in addition to smoothing the route network connection, the transit process of connecting the points is also particularly important. Through cooperation, one or several airlines provide passengers with one-time payment, one-time check-in, one-time security check, baggage direct tagging, and worry-free transit flight services, and the pilot operation at Kunming Airport greatly facilitates passenger transfer travel.
Data show that up to now, the total number of regional airports in the mainland has reached 207, accounting for 70.4% of the national transport airports, an increase of 43 compared with 2019, and the number of regional airports has steadily increased. Through the innovation of the "trunk branch connection, full network connection" mode, the civil aviation department has achieved more than 2,400 through flight connections, provided flight connections for 606 groups of city pairs, and promoted the service capacity of domestic route network by 14%.