News
China improves airport infrastructure
April 21st 2017
The Mainland has long pledged more money for airport infrastructure development, particularly for the less developed inland provinces. Read More »
This year, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, all the way in the west of the country and bordering on Kazakhstan, will receive 14.4 billion yuan to add new airports and improve existing facilities.
The province’s major hub airport, Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport, will see the addition of two runways and a 450,000 square metre terminal building to lift passenger throughout to 48 million per annum. China Southern, the largest carrier at the airport, serves a large domestic network from Urumqi but has limited international flights, including twice-weekly flights each to Dubai and Moscow’s Sheremetyevo.
New facilities will also be built in Kashgar, Aksu, Altay, Yining and Shache.
Jiangsu province’s Changzhou Airport has been upgraded from 4D to 4E certification standard this month, allowing for wide body operations with A330, B747, B777 and B787 aircraft but not the A380.
In its 13th Civil Aviation Development Five-Year Plan, Beijing targets the construction of 74 new civilian airports through to 2020. Mammoth projects are underway in Beijing, Chengdu, Kunming and Chongqing.
In related updates, recently expanded Lhasa Konggar Airport last week hosted an A330 overnight for the first time after Tibet Airlines engineers used a new oxygen diffusion device designed to increase air supply during the engine ignition process at high altitude.
Lhasa Airport sits at an elevation of approximately 3,600 metres.
Tibet Airlines received its first widebody last June, an A330-200 with increased 242 tonne maximum take-off-weight (MTOW). The increased MTOW, the first for an A330 in China, allows the airline to operate from Lhasa. The Tibet Airlines A330 is configured in a three-class cabin layout (12 business, 32 premium economy and 235 economy seats) and deployed to open up new international routes.
