100 million passengers in a year put city in the big airport league
Print Edition
SHANGHAI yesterday received its 100 millionth air passenger this year, making the city the world’s fifth to handle more than 100 million annual air passengers.
Shanghai follows London, New York, Tokyo and Atlanta in doing so, the airport authority said.
The passenger tally is for both the city’s airports combined.
Mao Weiying, a local landscape designer who took a China Eastern Airlines flight MU592 from Moscow to Shanghai, became the landmark passenger at Pudong International Airport yesterday morning, the authority announced.
The city’s Hongqiao and Pudong international airports currently have four terminal buildings and six runways. They handled 11 percent passengers of all China’s airports by the end of 2015.
The Pudong airport, which mainly operates international routes, now has flights connecting with 250 cities. More than 11 percent of its passengers are transferring to other cities, which ranks it No. 1 among the airports on China’s mainland, the authority said.
The authority is renovating the east part of the Hongqiao airport, while expanding the Pudong airport by building the world’s largest satellite terminal building to further improve capacity and services, according to Li Derun, president of the airport authority.
The H-shaped new satellite terminals at the Pudong airport — S1 and S2 — will be connected with the existing terminals 1 and 2 via underground subways. The complex is expected to be completed by 2019 with 83 departure gates and 120 new parking stands for aircraft.
On completion, the new terminal will provide a faster transfer service and boost the punctuality rate of flights.
“The city’s two airports will be able to handle 120 million passengers and 5.2 million tons of cargo annually by 2020,” Li announced yesterday.
Turnover at the airports has benefited from the rising demands of budget carriers, as well as the newly opened Shanghai Disney Resort ,said Zou Maogong, an expert with CARNOC.com, China’s largest civil aviation web portal.
The nation’s biggest low-cost carrier, Spring Airlines, is based in Shanghai, while the mainland’s first Disney resort was opened last June.
“It is estimated that Shanghai will surpass Tokyo next year to become the busiest air traffic hub in Asia,” Zou said.
Currently, London remains the world’s busiest air traffic hub with six airports and 150 million passengers annually. It is followed by New York, with 120 million annual passengers, and Tokyo with 110 million.
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