Mega-flight hub bolsters cluster plan

Beijing's new world-class facility could be boon for neighboring Tianjin, Hebei

Beijing's new mega-airport, which opened to traffic on Wednesday, is expected to boost the building of a world-class airport cluster in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and serve the region's integrated development, according to experts.

With Daxing airport in operation, the region now has four major civil airports-Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport in the capital city, one in Tianjin and one in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province.

Straddling the Daxing district of Beijing and Guangyang district of Langfang in Hebei province, the new airport sits at the junction of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and is the closest to Xiongan New Area among the four airports, about 74 kilometers away.

Building Xiongan New Area is "a strategy that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come", according to the Xiongan planning outline. The new area has been earmarked as a hub for Beijing's noncapital functions and a new economic engine driven by innovation, which has also helped place Hebei on the map as a new area of "national significance" after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Shanghai's Pudong New Area.

The other three airports are more than 120 km from Xiongan. The Daxing airport, with a designed maximum annual passenger volume of 100 million, is expected to greatly facilitate the flow of talent in the region, especially for Xiongan.

Before Daxing's opening, passengers from Tianjin as well as Langfang, Baoding, Shijiazhuang and Tangshan in Hebei province already accounted for nearly 20 percent of Beijing's total air traffic throughput last year, according to a report by online air ticket seller qunar.com.

Now the new airport, which is located closer to these cities than the capital airport, will surely attract more passengers from Tianjin and Hebei, and they will see their travel time reduced, said Li Xiaojin, a professor of aviation economics at Civil Aviation University of China in Tianjin.

"With the completion of the intercity railways and expressways linking the airport with Tianjin and Hebei province, it will take about an hour for passengers to reach Daxing from Tianjin as well as major cities in Hebei province including Shijiazhuang, Baoding and Tangshan," he said.

In addition, smart technologies such as big data and ticket information sharing will allow their air-rail transfer between airports and railway stations to become easier, he added.

As Beijing's twin hubs aim to strengthen aviation capabilities with a focus on international flights, the civil aviation authority's plan of building a world-class airport cluster in which member airports work in cooperation with a division of roles is finally beginning to materialize.

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, Tianjin airport will be turned into an international airfreight hub, and the one in Shijiazhuang is expected to handle regional flights.

Ouyang Jie, a professor who specializes in airport studies at Civil Aviation University of China, said that the clear positioning of each airport will facilitate their rapid development.

"The coordinated development between airports means the nonessential functions of Beijing's two airports will be transferred to other airports in the region. In other words, airports in Tianjin and Hebei should handle more regional air routes, while Beijing should focus on international routes," he said.