Transportation | Shenzhen plans three new airports in already saturated southern China

Shenzhen airport

Shenzhen is planning to build three new airports to service its main city and the Pearl River Delta region, as it assumes a larger role in China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative.
The three airports – which will specialize in serving commercial airlines, seaplanes and helicopters, respectively – will transform Shenzhen into southern China’s transport hub.
“Shenzhen will build the ‘One Belt, One Road’ transportation hub in southern China and study the plausibility of building an airport on water in the east, as well as starting to plan a second airport in the east as soon as possible,” the Shenzhen government’s “Eastward Shift Strategic Action Plan for 2016 – 2020” states, as cited in the South China Morning Post.
The airports, part of the RMB1.4 trillion (MOP1.7 trillion) strategy to shift the city’s development eastward, may lead to further market saturation in a region that already houses numerous transport facilities.
In addition to Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport – the city’s current hub for air travel – many airlines also operate out of airports in nearby Macau, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai.
According to Shenzhen Bao’an representatives, international traffic at the airport is expected to nearly double by 2020. However, both Macau and Zhuhai airports remain underutilized, though the former is now undergoing an expansion.
However, the construction of additional airports could ease some of the delays experienced at major airports in the Pearl River Delta region which are according to SCMP, caused by complicated airspace control.
CK Law, an associate director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Aviation Policy and Research Centre, warned that inter-airport cooperation in the region is an unlikely prospect for the future, as local governments are wont to prevent their own airports becoming secondary to others in the region.
“Pearl River Delta airport coordination is just a myth,” CK Law told SCMP. “If it could be done, it would have been done long ago.”
Shenzhen’s local government previously proposed a rail connection between the Shenzhen and Hong Kong airports, which would enable the two institutions to work as one. Under the proposal, Hong Kong would handle international traffic, while Shenzhen would handle domestic flights. However, the idea was rejected by Hong Kong authorities.
The Times approached the Macau Aviation Authority for comment on the proposal, but an MAA representative indicated that she was unaware of plans to construct additional airports in the region. The organization did not provide a further response by press time. DB