The cargo and mail throughput of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport reached 443,000 tons between January and July this year, up by 21.5% year on year, the city’s transport bureau said in a release Thursday.
So far this year, the airport has opened five new international cargo routes with Hanoi in Vietnam, Doha in Qatar, Leipzig in Germany, New York in the U.S., and Bangalore in India, bringing the total number of international airfreight destinations to 34 cities in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
The airport has also intensified cargo flights on eight routes, including Los Angeles in the U.S., Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Osaka in Japan, Seoul in South Korea, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Istanbul in Türkiye.
Each week, 400 cargo flights take off from the airport, the bureau said.
The Shenzhen airport, one of the world’s busiest airports, is the hub of a world-class airport cluster taking shape in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA).
The Shenzhen airport has an airfield spanning 7.7 million square meters and a cargo facility encompassing 1.66 million square meters. Its logistics center covers an area of 115,000 square meters and provides customs storage, international logistics distribution, customs services and door-to-door deliveries.
Forwarding companies such as UPS (United Parcel Service)Airlines, China Airlines Cargo and China Cargo Airlines as well as FedEx Express operate at the airport. It also serves as the Asia-Pacific cargo hub for UPS.
Once completed in 2030, the airport’s third runway will boost passenger throughput from 50 million to 80 million a year. It will also double freight and mail handling to 2.6 million tons, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. The extra facilities will help turn the airport into a global transport hub.
According to a plan released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China in 2020, the country will build a world-class airport cluster in the GBA by 2025, including building Guangzhou and Shenzhen international aviation hubs, consolidating Hong Kong’s status as an international aviation hub and improving Macao airport’s service capacity, as well as upgrading the nearby Zhuhai airport.
Currently, about 90% of all air traffic in the GBA is concentrated across the three airports in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shenzhen.