From the "number of people on the plane", look at the recovery of various places

Original Liu Xiaobo

"Number of air passengers", also known as "air passenger traffic", is an important economic indicator, which can reflect the activity of a local business activity and mid-to-high-end tourism industry.

The year 2023 that has just passed is the first year of economic recovery after the epidemic. Recently, the air passenger traffic in 2023 has been released one after another. From these data, it can be seen which provinces and cities have recovered faster and which cities have been slower.

Let's first look at the top 20 cities in terms of air passenger traffic (Taiwan Province is not included due to lack of data), and compare the passenger traffic in 2023 with the highest year in history. These figures are for each city's total air traffic, not for individual airports.

The highest point in Hong Kong's air passenger traffic was in 2018, and in 2019, mainland cities.

Compared to the highest year on record, the city with the largest decline in air passenger traffic in 2023 was Hong Kong, with a year-on-year decline of 47.1%.

In 2018, Hong Kong Airlines carried 74.7 million passengers, ranking eighth in the world and second in China. In 2023, Hong Kong Airport will be ranked around 40th in the world, and it can only rank 10th in the ranking of mainland cities.

There are two main reasons for the sharp decline in Hong Kong's air traffic: the first is the sharp decline in the number of mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong through Hong Kong, and the second is the decline in the number of international business passengers and tourists visiting Hong Kong.

Since international business and tourist groups mainly visit Hong Kong by airplane, the decline in air passenger traffic should be paid sufficient attention, otherwise Hong Kong's role as a "super connector" between China's economy and the world will decline, and there is a risk of being replaced by Singapore.

This is followed by Shanghai, which in 2023 is down 20.4% from the highest year on record.

Qingdao, Beijing, and Guangzhou again, down 16.2%, 14.7%, and 13.9% respectively.

The situation in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou is somewhat similar to that of Hong Kong. These cities have more international flights, and they are all gateway hub cities in China, and foreigners visiting China are likely to choose one of these four cities to land. Domestic tourists often travel abroad to these four cities to take international flights.

Therefore, the failure of air passenger traffic in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to recover to the highest level in history is closely related to the decline in the number of international business passengers and tourists, and the decline in Chinese outbound travel.

There are two main reasons for the decline in international exchanges:

First, under the great changes unseen in a century, foreign-funded enterprises have rearranged their industrial chains, and some investments have been transferred outside China, and the volume of business activities in China has naturally declined. Various official propaganda in Europe and the United States has reduced the desire of local residents to travel to China.

Second, the three-year epidemic and the downturn in the real estate stock market have caused Chinese residents to have a "balance sheet shrinking effect", and their desire to travel and consume abroad has declined.

Qingdao, Kunming, Xi'an, Xiamen, Nanjing, etc., are all tourist hotspots. Although domestic travel is popular in 2023, the total number of people traveling by air has declined, and everyone is taking more high-speed rail.

First, because high-speed rail is becoming more and more convenient, and second, high-speed rail as a whole is still cheaper than airplanes.

It should be noted that there are still factors affected by the epidemic in January 2023, and if the proportion of the epidemic dragging down air passenger traffic in 2023 is set at about 5%. Then, if the gap between 2023 and the highest year in history is 5% or less, it can be considered that it has returned to the highest point in history, or even surpassed. Only those that fall below the record high of more than 5% are considered "not fully recovered".

Cities such as Wuhan, Shenzhen, and Chongqing, which fell by less than 5% year-on-year, can be considered to have set a record high in air passenger traffic.

Compared with the highest year in history, cities with strong growth in air passenger traffic include Chengdu and Sanya.

Chengdu opened a new airport in June 2021, realizing dual airport operation, which greatly stimulated the growth of air passenger traffic, and became the third city of Chinese aviation, surpassing Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

The reason why Chengdu has achieved such good results is closely related to its status as the gateway hub of the southwest region, and many planes entering Tibet and Xinjiang have to stop and turn around in Chengdu.

Due to the large increase in the number of people flying to Chengdu, Chengdu's real estate will also be relatively warm in 2023, and it is one of the most resilient and active cities in the country.

Sanya, Urumqi, Hangzhou, Changsha, Haikou, and Harbin have all set record highs, and if you add the "impact value of the epidemic in January last year" of 5%, the increase will be even more obvious. These are all tourist hotspots, and their popularity is relatively high.

Looking at the situation of each "provincial-level region", only 31 provinces and municipalities in the mainland are counted here:

Ningxia saw the biggest decline, reaching 28.4%. Ningxia is a tourist region, and in the tourism recovery in 2023, it has not been able to seize the opportunity like Harbin and Sanya.

Tianjin fell second, reaching 22.4%. The throughput of Tianjin Airport is not large, only ranking 25th in the mainland, comparable to Guiyang and Jinan, and there are not many international flights. Therefore, the decline in passenger traffic of Tianjin Airlines is mainly due to the decline of domestic business passengers and tourists.

Tianjin's small western-style buildings in the late Qing Dynasty + Republic of China period are richer than Shanghai's, and the cityscape has both European classical and modern Chinese flavors, as well as certain food resources, but tourism has been tepid. It is regrettable that the diving of the Haihe River, which was once popular last year, was not converted into a continuous flow.

It was followed by Shanghai, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Beijing, Henan, Fujian, Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning, and Shanxi, all of which fell by more than 10% from the highest year.

These provinces and municipalities have either declined in the frequency of business activities or in the number of mid-to-high-end tourists.

Provinces and municipalities with record air passenger traffic are Sichuan (+29.7%), Tibet (+19.9%), Xinjiang (+9%), Jilin (+8.2%), Zhejiang (+5.5%), Hainan (+4.7%), Gansu (2.6%) and Heilongjiang (+0.7%).

Sichuan and Zhejiang's air passenger traffic has reached a new high, which is the dual role of good economy and good tourism. Several other provinces, mainly due to their characteristic tourism resources, have become hot spots for domestic tourism in 2023.

Finally, let's compare the air passenger traffic of each province and municipality, mainly looking at the 2023 data in the following table:

Guangdong is the only province with more than 100 million air passengers, reaching 141 million. Although it is 7.6% less than in 2019, the advantage in the country is very obvious, almost 3 times that of Jiangsu Province. Jiangsu and Guangdong's GDP has always been comparable, but the gap in air passenger traffic is far behind.

The mismatch between Jiangsu's air passenger traffic and GDP can also be seen from Zhejiang's data. Zhejiang's GDP is only 64% of Jiangsu's, and its population is 78% of Jiangsu's, but its air passenger traffic is 1.35 times that of Jiangsu.

It is estimated that there will be friends in Jiangsu who will refute: Passengers in the southern region of Jiangsu like to go to Shanghai to take a plane. This is indeed a reason, but the total passenger volume of Hongqiao Airport in 2023 will only be 42 million, even if 20 million passengers come from Jiangsu, Jiangsu will only add up to about half of Guangdong. Many Cantonese people go abroad to Hong Kong and Macao by plane.

There are also Shandong Province, Henan and other provinces with a relatively large population and relatively low air passenger traffic.

Shandong Province has a population 1.52 times that of Zhejiang, a GDP that is 1.12 times that of Zhejiang, and air passenger traffic that is 75% of Zhejiang.

Having said that, the number of high-speed rail direct connections to cities (especially core cities) within 5 hours will affect everyone's desire to take a plane. Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu are all in central China, and it is more convenient to take the high-speed rail than Guangdong, Fujian, and the three northeastern provinces.

Provinces with better tourism resources will have higher air passenger traffic, such as Sichuan, Yunnan, Hainan, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, etc.

Since Beijing and Shanghai are the gateway hub cities of the country, the air passenger traffic is relatively high.