What's Another 97 Airports?

Just another sign of China’s bulging tourism muscle: The Middle Kingdom will open 97 new airports by the year 2020, according to China's General Administration of Civil Aviation's latest airport development plan. In just two years, the country plans to have 192 operating airports, that's up from 147 in late 2006. By 2020, they anticipate a total of 244. The estimated price tag? A mean $64 billion.

Construction of a second international airport in Beijing will begin before 2010. Nearly 53.5 million passengers trafficked through the existing Beijing airport last year, ranking it among the world’s ten busiest.

China’s People’s Daily explains:

This means 82 in every 100 people—who contribute 96 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP)—will live within 100 km, or 90 minutes’ drive, from an airport by 2020. At present, only 61 percent of people—who contribute 82 percent of GDP—lives within this range, the plan said.

The civil airport development plan was drafted to meet increasing demand, as the CAAC predicted passenger traffic will grow by 11.4 percent annually from now until 2020, during which time freight traffic will increase by 14 percent a year.

The whole ordeal might sound overwhelming on face value, but Treehugger offers an interesting comparison:

It's not clear exactly what criteria the People's Daily uses to define what types of airports are included in its count, but if we compare apples to apples and look in the CIA Factbook, we find that there are 5,143 airports (paved runways) in the USA vs. 403 in China. That helps keep things in perspective...

While we wince for the inherent environmental fallout, we're intrigued by the potential travel opportunities.

What do you think? Weigh in with your opinions in the comments below.

Photo: Stuart Forster

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Comments

[Suz]

I think that opening that many airports is an impressive undertaking by the Chinese government, but I do hope that the airports are not placed in places that would be permanently damaged by their presence (ie: natural places, etc.). Will be interesting to see if these are mostly larger airports or small airports as well.