Bay Area airport cluster ranks among top aviation hubs globally in 2025

Shenzhen Baoan International Airport [Photo; China Daily]

On The Agenda

Airports across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) delivered a standout performance in 2025, strengthening the region’s position as one of the world’s leading aviation hub clusters. According to newly released operational data from seven major airports, the GBA handled more than 230 million passenger trips and about 9.72 million tonnes of cargo and mail during the year.

Aviation experts say the figures reflect a major upgrade in the cluster’s overall capacity and efficiency, positioning the GBA as a key driver of China’s modernization and high-standard opening-up policies. The strong results are widely attributed to continued institutional innovation, improved regional coordination, and the region’s growing ability to allocate resources on a global scale.

The three core hubs – Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Shenzhen Baoan International Airport, and Hong Kong International Airport – led the surge. Guangzhou Baiyun reached a historic milestone in 2025, recording 83.59 million passenger trips and 2.44 million tonnes of cargo and mail, both all-time highs. Shenzhen Baoan handled 66.49 million passenger trips during the year, underscoring its role as a rapidly growing international gateway.

Hong Kong International Airport, long regarded as the world’s busiest cargo airport, also posted solid gains. Passenger numbers climbed to 61 million in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 15%, while cargo volume rose 2.7% to 5.07 million tonnes. Together, the three hubs accounted for the bulk of the GBA’s passenger and freight traffic.

Smaller airports within the cluster also showed strong momentum. Cargo and mail throughput rose 15% in Zhuhai, 1.08% in Macau, and 25% in Huizhou, pointing to increasingly balanced growth across the GBA’s multi-tier airport system.

The surge in air travel and logistics demand is closely linked to the GBA’s economic scale and global connectivity. In 2024, the region’s total economic output reached 14.79 trillion yuan (about $2.12 trillion), surpassing that of the New York and San Francisco Bay Areas and placing the GBA alongside the Tokyo Bay Area among the world’s top bay economies. Regional GDP was expected to exceed 15 trillion yuan in 2025.

Among the world’s four major bay area airport clusters, the GBA leads in transport volume. The network includes three hub airports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, two trunk airports in Zhuhai and Macau, and two feeder airports in Huizhou and Foshan, with routes connecting more than 200 cities worldwide. In 2024, the cluster had already handled more than 214 million passenger trips.

The airport cluster has also developed “express channels” tailored to the GBA’s advanced manufacturing base and its global trade model of high-volume buying and selling. Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation College, said high-value-added products such as semiconductor chips, biopharmaceuticals, precision instruments, new-energy vehicle components, and high-end consumer electronics rely heavily on efficient air logistics.

Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as SHEIN and Temu are adding further momentum. Their supply chain models, based on small batches, high frequency, and rapid turnover, have driven demand for customized services such as e-commerce-dedicated routes and charter flights, Qi noted.

Policy support is reinforcing these trends. Streamlined air-rail-sea intermodal transport, cross-border logistics initiatives, and expanded visa-free entry policies have all improved connectivity. In the first 11 months of 2025, visa-free foreign arrivals via Shenzhen airport surged 133% year on year. Guangzhou Baiyun added or resumed nearly 40 international routes, lifting international passengers by 19.8%, while Hong Kong International Airport added 30 new global destinations, including Abu Dhabi and Brussels. Xinhua Reporter