About 27 Chinese civil airports registered an annual passenger throughput of more than 10 million each in 2020.
This is down from 39 in 2019, according to a statistical bulletin released by civil aviation authorities.
These mega airports contributed more than 70 per cent of the country’s air passenger transport volume in 2020.
The figure is contained in the 2020 civil airport production statistical bulletin released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
Among the total, mega airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou served 18.2 per cent of China’s total air passenger throughput in 2020.
China has been enhancing its civil aviation infrastructure sector.
As of the end of 2020, China’s total number of certified civil transport airports reached 241.
Among all civil airports, 59 each handled more than 10,000 tonnes of air freight in 2020.
The airports jointly contributed 98.6 per cent of the nation’s total air freight in 2020.
Airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou jointly handled 44 per cent of the country’s air freight transport volume, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points compared with the figure in 2019.
In 2020, China’s civil airports handled around 857.2 million passengers and 16.08 million tonnes of air freight, down 36.6 per cent and six per cent year on year, respectively.
Thanks to the country’s economic resilience and effective pandemic control, China was leading the global civil aviation industry in recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly on domestic routes.
China’s civil aviation sector had remained the world’s second-largest in terms of passenger trips for the past 15 years, according to the CAAC.
