A Chinese Airport Readies for Takeoff

With its glitzy American-designed terminal and twin 2.5-mile-long runways, Guangzhou’s new multibillion-dollar Baiyun International Airport is merely the latest major transportation project to grace southern China’s Pearl River Delta -- one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

It will be the area’s fifth airport in recent years and will be able to handle the world’s largest commercial aircraft -- the 550-seat Airbus 380 -- and nearly 30 million passengers a year when it opens next fall. Some believe that the new airport, with ambitions to become a hub for the Southeast Asia region, could directly challenge Hong Kong’s 5-year-old international airport less than 100 miles away.

“Our biggest competitor is Hong Kong,” Rena Huang, a Baiyun airport official, said as she led a group of foreign reporters through the nearly completed main terminal. “Right now, Hong Kong is the transit point between China and the rest of the world, but we’ve got a lot of things going for us.”

With a population of about 10 million, Guangzhou -- the capital of Guangdong province -- is one of the largest cities in southern China. It is also the administrative center for the delta, where cheap labor, modern infrastructure and efficient links to the outside world make it one of the most attractive manufacturing centers anywhere.

Other ambitious transportation projects are underway, including a $110-million bridge and tunnel system linking Hong Kong with the nearby mainland city of Shenzhen. A 25-mile bridge linking Hong Kong with Zhuhai and Macao to the west is in the planning stages.

During the first nine months of this year, the province drew $12.6 billion in direct foreign investment and conducted more than $200 billion in foreign trade, according to Guangdong’s governor, Huang Huahua. And this took place in a year when the pneumonia-like SARS illness slowed economic activity to a crawl for two months last spring.

“We’re growing at [an annual rate of] 13.3%,” he said.

At present, about 85% of the traffic at Guangzhou’s existing airport consists of domestic flights, but those involved with Baiyun International -- 12 miles from the downtown area -- said they hoped to change that.

“We predict we’ll have increased international travel,” said Huang, the airport official. Evidence of this push came this month when Air France and Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines announced plans to inaugurate nonstop service to Paris in January. It would be the first nonstop service linking the delta metropolis with a major Western city.

So far, at least, Hong Kong International Airport officials seem relaxed about Guangzhou’s challenge. While Guangzhou currently serves just a handful of destinations outside China, Hong Kong offers flights to 140 destinations globally, with less than one-third of them in mainland China.

Despite the level of enthusiasm, two major factors work against Baiyun International becoming a global hub soon: Negotiating traffic rights is a long and arduous process, and China’s central government has traditionally given Beijing and Shanghai higher priority in this area.

For now, those who track air travel patterns in the region believe that the province’s other sizable domestic airport at Shenzhen will probably be more vulnerable than Hong Kong to a loss of traffic once Baiyun International opens. They also note that the new mainland airport could also hurt smaller, already under-utilized facilities at Macao and Zhuhai.

Still, if present economic growth rates continue, some specialists believe that future demand in the Pearl River Delta could support five airports.

“Yes, there will be competition, but yes, there will also be complementarity,” said Michael Enright, a Hong Kong University Business School professor who monitors the delta’s economic development. “Just like multiple airports in New York or London, each finds its own niche.”