Airside economy of 13 billion, 50 billion spent on expansion, Xi'an airport "big horse-drawn cart"? International air transport
Airside economy of 13 billion, 50 billion spent on expansion, Xi'an airport "big horse-drawn cart"? International air transport
At the end of September, the main structure of the East Terminal of the Phase III expansion project of Xi'an Xianyang Airport ("Xi'an Airport") was completed one month ahead of schedule, with an investment of 4.387 billion yuan - equivalent to 8.8% of the total investment of 49.6 billion yuan in the expansion project. According to the plan, the airport can guarantee annual passenger throughput of 83 million passengers and cargo and mail throughput of 1 million tons in 2030. It is expected to meet the demand of 120 million passengers and 2 million tons of air cargo in the long term.
Last year, the passenger throughput of Xi'an Airport was 30.17 million, and the cargo and mail throughput was about 395,600 tons, which ranked 9th in China. "The size of its airside economy is only 13 billion yuan. The airport economy is "surrounded by strong players", 700-800 km from Xi'an Xianyang Airport, Wuhan Tianhe Airport, Chengdu Shuangliu Airport, Chongqing Jiangbei Airport, 500-600 km from Xinzheng Airport.
Chengdu and Chongqing airports have more runways than Xi'an, and Tianhe and Xinzheng airports are also expanding, making the central and western part of the country a "frontier position" for the aviation hub industry. Airport expansion "arms race" Xi'an must follow, but want to avoid idle aviation resources, "big horse-drawn cart" situation, Xi'an to fill the short board is still quite a lot.
After the epidemic Xi'an airport cargo "sing the lead"
Xi'an Xianyang Airport's passenger throughput has been "fairly stable", ranking 7th to 9th in the country for the past fifteen years; in comparison, the airport's cargo and mail throughput has increased significantly in ranking, rising from 15th in 2007 to 9th in 2021.
In fact, the improvement in cargo and mail volume occurred mainly after 2017, with the airport's cargo and mail volume increasing by more than 20% for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. In six of the last fifteen years, Xi'an Xianyang Airport's passenger throughput has been lower than the year-over-year increase in cargo and mail throughput - two of which occurred prior to 2017 and four after 2018. These figures may be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but in short, before 2017, Xi'an Xianyang Airport had "more passengers and less cargo", and after the formation of a double-cycle economy, especially since the outbreak of the epidemic, the airport's cargo began to "take the lead".
Before 2017, Xi'an Xianyang Airport had always been "passenger-oriented but cargo-light": after the global financial crisis in 2008, the airport's passenger throughput and landings increased significantly, but the cargo and mail throughput grew significantly slower than the previous two. The growth rate of cargo and mail throughput was significantly slower than the previous two. Horizontally, compared with the neighboring airports, the cargo scale of Xi'an airport has a small increase and a slow growth rate. After 2017, the double-cycle economic pattern began, and policy dividends from the national level began to pour down. In 2018, the state approved the construction of the "Xi'an Airport Economic Demonstration Zone" at the airport. At the end of that year, the airport was granted the "fifth air traffic right", and in 2020, the Xi'an Airport Comprehensive Free Trade Zone was approved, with a number of early and pilot policies stacked on top of each other.
In addition to changes in the economic environment and policy dividends, there are also epidemic factors that have boosted airport cargo. In fact, the third phase of the airport expansion is more because of passenger saturation - according to local media reports, the existing terminal building design capacity of 50 million passengers, "in the face of the year-on-year surge in passenger traffic, the airport hardware facilities are close to saturation".
In 2019, the airport's third-phase expansion project received project approval from the National Development and Reform Commission; in January 2020, it received approval for a feasibility study ...... followed by an outbreak of the epidemic, with passenger traffic dropping from 470,000 in 2019 to 310,000 in 2020 and then to 300,000 last year. Without the expected surge in passenger traffic, cargo has ridden the wave of recent years. Although the volume of cargo and mail at the airport has started to pick up, it is not strong enough because of the shortcomings of the airside economy in Shaanxi, especially Xi'an, which is the "reservoir" for cargo and mail.
The lack of high-end industries in the Xi'an Airport Economic Zone From an institutional point of view, the Xi'an Airport Economic Zone is a national demonstration zone, implemented by the Xi'an New Area Airport New City Management Committee, and currently lacks a strong unified coordination mechanism across the province. The construction of the airport zone is undertaken by the Xi'an New Area Airport New City Management Committee, and the Xi'an New Area is administered by Xi'an City, which has many levels of management, scattered districts and barriers. In addition, the expansion and radiation area of the airport zone involves administrative districts such as Xi'an, Xianyang and Xi'an New Area, making coordination difficult and construction inefficient.
In terms of the relationship between the airport and the airport, Xi'an Xianyang Airport is operated and managed by the Western Airport Group, while the Airport New City Management Committee is under the jurisdiction of the Xi'an New District as the main body of the construction of the airport, which makes it difficult to unify the two in terms of development planning, objectives and initiatives, affecting the integration of the airport and the airport - specifically in terms of traffic connection, and The airfield and the airport are not in harmony in terms of development planning, goals and initiatives.
As an "international aviation hub", the airport will have a long-term passenger throughput of 120 million passengers and cargo and mail throughput of 2 million tons. However, there is no dedicated freight line from the city to the airport, and there are only two highways on the approach road, which leaves a potential congestion problem due to the mismatch of traffic connection. Airport economic zone and the airport, Xi'an, Xianyang in infrastructure construction has not yet unified planning, affecting the overall promotion of integrated transport hub. In addition, the airport's passenger and cargo throughput ranks first in the northwest, but the circulation advantage has not been transformed into the development momentum of the new airport city.
The airport area lacks high-quality enterprise subjects, and mostly primary industries such as aviation logistics and aviation food processing, and the policy transformation is in the initial stage. The strategic plan of Xi'an aviation hub also suggests that the aviation orientation of the industry in the airside area is not strong, the degree of concentration of high-end industrial clusters is not enough, and the benign interaction relationship with the aviation hub has not yet been formed. Around the airport of the circle-type industrial layout, Xi'an New Area Airport New City, Xianyang City, Xi'an City, each have planning, lack of coordination, industrial planning is not uniform, the future adjustment difficulties.
For example, the aviation food industry needs to be laid out within a 7-minute distance from the airport, but the planning position has exceeded this range. At present, the airside zone is focusing on three leading industries, such as advanced manufacturing industry, aviation hub security industry and high-end service industry, but they are not in the climate, and the scale of airside economy is about 13 billion yuan. However, due to the lack of guidance at the provincial level, the zone has not yet taken advantage of military research and production to form large-scale, high value-added production enterprises and manufacturing bases in electronics, biology and pharmaceuticals that can take advantage of aviation logistics.
In general, the agglomeration function of the airport economic zone has not yet been formed, and the industry cultivation is lagging behind. On the one hand, the layout of the industries located in the airport economic zone is scattered and poorly related, making it difficult to form a related industrial chain; on the other hand, the existing industries in the airport economic zone lack the radiation drive of large leading enterprises, and there are few industrial projects with obvious airside orientation, affecting the formation of industrial clusters.
In addition to poor integration and industrial development, the Xi'an Airport Zone itself is also "congenitally inadequate", which makes the later development difficult. According to the distribution rules of the airport economic zone, the airport-oriented influence, the airport as the center of a 6-15 km radius to calculate the construction area of the airport economic zone can be more than 700 square kilometers, the demonstration area planning scope and the actual development of the area is far from.
For example, Chengdu was approved for an area of 100 square kilometers, but the actual planning area is 300 square kilometers; Zhengzhou has a planning area of 415 square kilometers; Chongqing has set an outreach radiation area in addition to the airport control area, manufacturing and distribution area, and business service area. Data show that the Xi'an airfield demonstration zone planning and construction area of only 144 square kilometers, in line with the land planning and construction area of only 29.4 square kilometers, planning and construction area is small. Specifically for the airport land, Xi'an airport pre-planning land 26.4 square kilometers, the long term and control land 46.6 square kilometers. But at present, the airport late planning land has been occupied by the industrial projects and roads.
For example, Zhengping Street, which has been completed and opened to traffic, has occupied the land for the fifth runway planned by the airport, which has limited the space for the airport's later development. Xi'an is close to Chengdu, Chongqing and Zhengzhou, and there is little difference in the geographical location conditions for developing air passengers and cargo, and the competition for westward international routes is fierce. With the continuous integration of civil aviation and high-speed rail, Xi'an airport and the surrounding airport hinterland market overlap and cross each other, competition further intensified. Although the West Ham Airport full cargo routes have grown from 9 7 years ago to 42 (20 domestic, 23 international), but compared to Chengdu Chongqing Zhengzhou is still a gap. As of 2022, Chengdu Shuangliu is flying 31 international (regional) cargo routes, Chongqing Jiangbei Airport has 29, and Zhengzhou Xinzheng Airport has 35, a significant portion of which overlap. The development of international business at Xi'an Airport is relatively lagging behind, with international routes not covering a wide range and the frequency of flights not high. The overall scale of cargo business is small and does not match the airport's hub status, with a small volume of international cargo business and a lack of large professional air logistics operators based in Xi'an.
In 2019, when the Xi'an Xianyang Airport Phase III expansion project is approved, the total project investment is expected to be 47.14 billion yuan; in 2020, when the project starts, the total project investment is expected to rise to 47.645 billion yuan; this year, the total project investment expands to 49.6 billion yuan. It can be expected that in 2025, when the project is completed, the figure will exceed 50 billion yuan in all probability. These investments want to obtain the corresponding return, need to work hard not only the West Ham
