China's airport expansions take off

Economic growth, social mobility and a rapidly expanding middle class are all driving demand for more airports here in China. Our reporter Martina Fuchs was at the China Airport Expansion Summit 2013 in Beijing today.

Q: Martina, what's on the cards?

A: Hi Haidi, yes indeed. We can even talk about an airport construction rush in the world's most populous country. China is currently undergoing dozens of mega expansion projects at airports to satisfy the ever-growing travel demand of its 1.3 billion population. According to the industry body IATA, China's internal passenger numbers will grow by an annual 10 percent from 2011 to 2016 and result in almost 160 million new domestic passengers. This obviously requires a huge expansion of airports and aviation logistics across the world's second-largest economy. Let's take a listen.

In China, airports and not just airplanes are taking off the ground...

The global airline industry has been facing a lot of turbulences last year, with the economic downturn and hurricane Sandy being just two of the numerous headwinds.

But China seems to be in a pole position.

At the China Airport Expansion Summit 2013, how to further accelerate the civil aviation infrastructure and expand the scope of air transportation is being tackled.

Tian Baohua, Advisor of China Ministry of Transport, said, "From 1978 to 2010, the growth rate of China's air traffic was above 15 percent. Considering China's giant population and fast development of the economy, the demand surpasses the supply of China's domestic aviation by far. "

According to the IATA Airline Industry Forecast 2012 to 2016, China will become the second-largest market after the United States in terms of domestic passenger volumes by 2016, reaching 415 million people.

This makes the building and expansion of airports a top priority for the government.

Wolfgang Weil, chief operations officer of Xi'An International Airport, said, "Since 2008, we have a joint venture in Xi'an, and traffic has nearly doubled in 4 years. That is amazing. We will continue at a similar pace, a little slower in the future, but in the range of 10-13 percent at a yearly growth."

In July, China's State Council issued a guideline that highlighted civil aviation as a "national strategic industry".

According to the guideline, China will build 82 new airports between 2011 and 2015, and construct a national air transport network that will cover 89 percent of the total population by 2020.

One example for this boom is the Beijing Capital International Airport, which goes by the airport code PEK, added its huge Terminal 3 in 2008 just in time for the Olympic Games.

It is currently the second busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger throughput behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

But it is not enough. China's latest ambitious project is the Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is planned to be built in a southern outskirts of the city. The planned completion date for the new airport is 2017.

But even with these ambitious projects, China will still lag behind many other major countries in terms of the total number of airports. The United States for example counts about 19,000 airports, while emerging market Brazil has about 700. A major problem is also that many airports built years ago are now deemed too small, which calls either for their consolidation or expansion.