Beijing plans new $14 billion airport to ease congestion at its overcrowded air travel gateway, already the world’s second-busiest

Beijing Plans to Spend $14 Billion on Second Airport

New Airport Expected to Open in 2018

JOANNE CHIU

May 13, 2014 8:17 a.m. ET

HONG KONG—Beijing plans to spend around US$14 billion to build a new airport in the outskirts of the nation’s capital to relieve congestion at its overcrowded air travel gateway, already the world’s second-busiest.

Set to open in 2018, the new airport will have four runways in its first phase and can handle nearly as many passengers as the existing Beijing Capital600008.SH -0.78% Airport, according to a newly released environmental-impact report by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection. The plans have provisions for three additional runways as needed.

For decades, Capital Airport has been China’s main gateway to the world, home to flag carrier Air China Ltd. 601111.SH -1.18% and the connection between dozens of major cities. As air travel has surged across the nation, Beijing continues to serve as the main hub for international travel.

But despite several major expansion programs in recent years—including a passenger terminal complex that’s one of the world’s biggest—the airport continues to struggle to meet demand.

Last year, Capital Airport handled 83.7 million passengers—second in the world only to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the U.S.—and well beyond its designed capacity of 76 million passengers a year.

As many as 142 million passengers a year are expected to travel via Beijing by 2020, according to the environmental-impact report. Aircraft manufacturer BoeingCo. BA +0.76% predicts that total airline passenger traffic in China will nearly quadruple between 2012 and 2032.

The recent slowdown in China’s economy hasn’t hit the nation’s leisure travel market, as more and more affluent Chinese tourists travel abroad. The nation’s top three state airlines—Air China, China Southern Airlines Co. 600029.SH -0.41%, and China Eastern Airlines Corp. 600115.SH -0.84% —carried 13% more passengers in the first three months of 2014 than during the same period a year earlier.

However, robust demand is putting more pressure on many of the nation’s already congested airport facilities. Shanghai Pudong Airport, the nation’s third-biggest by passenger traffic, is building two more runways to a total of five. Airports in the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen are each planning to add a third runway.

Construction of a new Beijing airport, to be located around 46 kilometers south of the city center, also comes as the nation is seeking to form more airlines, particular budget carriers, to cope with the rapidly growing number of travelers.

Beijing earlier unveiled long-awaited guidelines to jump-start the nation’s fledgling budget airline market, including pledges for financial support, putting pressure on large state carriers amid increasing competitive threats.

However, analysts question how effective a new Beijing airport and other infrastructure elsewhere would be if the nation’s airspace remains as congested as it is now.

More than 80% of China’s airspace is controlled by the military, leaving just a handful of corridors and routes for civilian use, contributing to the bottleneck that results in long and frequent delays, particularly at times of bad weather and military exercises.

“It isn’t uncommon for a metropolitan city to have two airports,” said Edward Xu, a transport analyst at Morgan Stanley. MS +0.18% But he said the new airport won’t be fully utilized if authorities don’t relax airspace restrictions and enhance the efficiency of air-traffic control.

Because of the airspace congestion, planes in Beijing depart at intervals longer than two minutes on average, says Mr. Xu, much longer than the 45-second intervals at London’s Heathrow Airport.

 

Beijing plans new $14 billion airport to ease congestion

5:27am BST

BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing plans to build a new 86 billion yuan ($14 billion) airport in the south of the Chinese capital as congestion continues to clog runways and gates at Beijing Capital International Airport.

The new facility, which will border on Hebei province, is planned to handle 72 million passengers and 2 million tons of cargo annually, according to a document posted on the website of Ministry of Environmental Protection late last week.

Beijing’s Capital International Airport, which was built in 1958, is already operating beyond its designed capacity of 80 million passengers per year. In 2013, the airport handled 83 million visitors.

China’s airports in total handled more than 754 million passengers last year, up 11 percent from 2012 and 86 percent from five years ago, official data shows.

Congestion and delays are only set to worsen as manufacturers estimate one new plane will take to China’s skies every other day for the next two decades.

By 2015, Beijing alone is expected to see 113 million air passengers each year, rising to 142 million by 2020, according to the document.

A shortage of slots at major airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, along with China’s restricted air corridors, cause constant delays at Chinese airports which sometimes lead to riots.

In February, angry passengers protesting a long delay smashed computers and chairs at Xinzheng International airport. One passenger even managed to get into the airport’s control room and beat up airport staff, according to local media report.