Beijing set to overtake Heathrow this year

Beijing set to overtake Heathrow this year
By Doug Newhouse, 29 March 2010

According to estimates by the respected Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) is 'on track' to become the world's largest passenger handling airport in the world by as early as 2012 and this year it could overtake London Heathrow Airport in total passenger numbers.

Drawing on ACI passenger numbers and statistics from BCIA, CAPA says that Beijing handled 65m passengers in total in calendar year 2009 - a 16.8% increase - and this was just behind Heathrow's total of 66m (-1.5%), but still some way off Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, which handled 88m (-2.3%) last year.

But CAPA notes that the growth rate at Beijing - China's largest airport - has been spectacular, with passenger traffic up by 170% from the 2001 total of 24.2m passengers and it notes significantly that BCIA was the only airport in the top ten to show any growth in 2009. In fact, BCIA's total traffic has only fallen once in the last decade from 27.2m in 2002 to 24.3m in 2003 because of the SARs outbreak.

However, such impressive growth comes at a price and CAPA says that if recent trends are maintained, Beijing will again be operating close to its design capacity and the pressure will be on for officials to progress the much-delayed second Beijing airport project.

Meanwhile, CAAC recently reported that China's airports handled 174m passengers in 2009, a 16.8% year-on-year increase, of which 87.5% were domestic passengers and CAPA's analysis shows that 14 mainland Chinese airports reported annual passenger traffic of more than 10m in 2009, with all the major airports (with annual passengers of plus-5m) reporting solid year-on-year growth.

Drawing on its own data and statistics from various other sources, CAPA said: "The smaller airports of Chengdu, Changsha, Sanya, Harbin and Guiyan reported growth of above 30%. Beijing was also the fastest growing of the nation's five largest airports (i.e. Guangzhou, Shanghai Pudong, Shanghai Hongqiao and Shenzhen), driven by strong year-on-year growth in 1H2009, off a weaker base in 1H2008.http://www.trend-news.com