Chengdu, the capital of the central Chinese province of Sichuan, joined the cities with two international airports after Shanghai and Beijing. Chengdu's Tianfu airport, whose construction was completed at the end of March, was opened for use as of June 28.
According to the new five-year plan adopted in Beijing this spring, 30 new civil airports will be built and inaugurated in the next five years. Thus, the passenger capacity of civil aviation will be increased by 43 percent to two million a year.
It is known that the pandemic has not affected the government's aviation plans; because their domestic journeys have already reached the pre-corona epidemic level. It is also seen that the number of air travels will increase gradually. During the previous five-year plan period, 43 airports were built. These included Beijing's Daxing Airport, which was put into operation in September 2015.
China's ability to keep airport construction processes short to this extent stems from its experience in this area. In fact, the People's Republic of China has the largest number of airports in the world, with 241 internationally recognized airports. Meanwhile, regional airports are planned to be built in medium-sized cities such as Shuzhou Shanxi), Jiaxing (Zhejiang), Ruijin (Jiangxi) and Aral (Xinjiang). This type of medium-distance air transportation is considered very useful and necessary, especially for regions where fast transportation by land is problematic.
On the other hand, important air traffic intersections such as Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport will also be expanded. In addition, new airports will be built in Xiamen (Fujian), Hohhot (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region). In the next five years, there will be about 40 airports suitable for international flights in China.
According to a new infrastructure construction plan for the next 15 years announced in February, the above-mentioned constructions will not complete the Chinese airline network. Accordingly, there will be a total of 2035 airports in China by 400. This means that an average of ten airports will be built annually. However, on the other hand, the government shared its targets to invest heavily in other transportation routes.
As a matter of fact, Beijing aims to increase the length of the national high-speed train network to 2035 kilometers by 70. This is many times higher than the target of 38 thousand kilometers estimated last year. In addition, the length of the country's total railway network will increase to 15 kilometers in 200 years, which is 37 percent higher than previously thought. The length of express highways will reach 460 thousand kilometers.
Source: China International Radio
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