https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-12 ... 58500.html

The CAAC has recently announced its aim to double the number of airports in China to 450 by 2035 in a new industry plan released this week in a bid to build the country into an aviation power, as per the Caixin report

The plan comes as the government switches gears on infrastructure spending, with growth in investment falling to historic lows during the first nine months of the year

Separately, in a recent keynote speech at Hub Airport Construction & Future Airport Development Summit in Guangzhou (http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2018-12 ... 9006.shtml), Mr Liu Chunchen, a CAAC official responsible for airport affairs, disclosed that CAAC has charted a blueprint for twelve 100M airports across mainland China in the foreseeable future, as shown in the graph below


Top down(The 3rd column header in the graph is for the number of planned rwys, the 4th header for the area with hectare as unit)
Beijing Daxing/ZBAD 150M-170M
Beijing Capital/PEK 100M
Shanghai PVG 120M-130M
Guangzhou CAN 140M
Zhengzhou CGO 130M
Kunming KMG 120M
Wuhan WUH 120M
Xi'an XIY 120M
Nanjing NKG 100M
Harbin HRB 100M
Hangzhou HGH 95M
Chengdu Tianfu 90M

Very ambitious plans, esp those planned 100M airports in tier-2 provincial capitals
It’s also amazing Beijing would host two 100M airports in the same metro area

I thought I saw this same announcement about a year ago on a different thread.

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

The population better behave otherwise they won't have enough social credit to travel.

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

Surely they would not have much of a choice, yes they would keep a firm reign on it but without that extra space the bottle necks would make flying in China airspace a ticking timebomb.

China needs extra airports to divert flights to when some airfields are fogged in by the pollution.

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

That's not up to CAAC

Zoedyn wrote:

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-12/china-aims-to-have-450-airports-by-2035-almost-doubling-its-current-number-of-airports-as-part-of-the-countrys-ambition-to-build-itself-into-an-aviation-power-its-aviation-regulator-said-101358500.html

The CAAC has recently announced its aim to double the number of airports in China to 450 by 2035 in a new industry plan released this week in a bid to build the country into an aviation power, as per the Caixin report

The plan comes as the government switches gears on infrastructure spending, with growth in investment falling to historic lows during the first nine months of the year

Separately, in a recent keynote speech at Hub Airport Construction & Future Airport Development Summit in Guangzhou (http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2018-12 ... 9006.shtml), Mr Liu Chunchen, a CAAC official responsible for airport affairs, disclosed that CAAC has charted a blueprint for twelve 100M airports across mainland China in the foreseeable future, as shown in the graph below


Top down(The 3rd column header in the graph is for the number of planned rwys, the 4th header for the area with hectare as unit)
Beijing Daxing/ZBAD 150M-170M
Beijing Capital/PEK 100M
Shanghai PVG 120M-130M
Guangzhou CAN 140M
Zhengzhou CGO 130M
Kunming KMG 120M
Wuhan WUH 120M
Xi'an XIY 120M
Nanjing NKG 100M
Harbin HRB 100M
Hangzhou HGH 95M
Chengdu Tianfu 90M

Very ambitious plans, esp those planned 100M airports in tier-2 provincial capitals
It’s also amazing Beijing would host two 100M airports in the same metro area

I'm wondering how much Tianjin numbers will drop with Daxing opening.

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

That's funny

Congratulations to Chinese aviation and its people!! They are a powerhouse!! China is where hope and optimism can be found for the future!! I look forward to China becoming number 1 in aviation!

Pi7472000 wrote:

Congratulations to Chinese aviation and its people!! They are a powerhouse!! China is where hope and optimism can be found for the future!! I look forward to China becoming number 1 in aviation!

I feel like this right from the Politburo

The first 5 are needed. After that, this is becoming make work. Chinese aviation is growing, but not at the rate to double the quantity of airports. We already have unused open airports. There will not be ten superhubs. Five? Yes.

Many airports are needed. Hundreds are not. Not unless everyone with a low social score is allowed to buy a plane.

There is a correlation between corruption index and per capital income. IMHO, China us approaching that cap.

Late edit, China is at 41 (100 perfect) on corruption:
https://www.transparency.org/country/CHNuote="rbavfan"]

A better correlation on integrity and energy consumption vs. GNP per capital:
http://dougrobbins.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... s.html?m=1

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

That's funny[/quote]
Airspace will limit growth.

How busy is PVG? I was there within the last few weeks. Landed at 730pm ish on a Sunday and though we used a remote stand, the actual airport didnt seem to busy. I also left on a Monday at about 1pm and again, the terminal airport didnt seem that busy.

southsky wrote:

Pi7472000 wrote:

Congratulations to Chinese aviation and its people!! They are a powerhouse!! China is where hope and optimism can be found for the future!! I look forward to China becoming number 1 in aviation!

I feel like this right from the Politburo

no, comrade. is simply capitalist accepting chinese superiority

Their bullet rail network is nearing completion. They just linked Guangzhou and Beijing. So I would assume that because of the prominence and quality of these trains that share would be taken away from airlines in general.

But then again there are more people there than anywhere so maybe the economics work out just because of shear force of numbers.

cc2314 wrote:

The population better behave otherwise they won't have enough social credit to travel.

If the government plans to be flying people to those "voluntary vocational training centers", I'm sure it evens out.

lightsaber wrote:

We already have unused open airports.

Do you have any example of that? As far as I know there are no unused open airports in China, in fact, pretty much all commercial airports in China that have yet to be expanded are handling more passengers than they were designed for, even new airports with enormous terminals like Kunming and Shenzhen are already above design capacity and are already building new terminals and runways. Guangzhou before the new terminal opened was running at close to 200% of design capacity and even with the new 7 million sq feet terminal opened just a few months ago the airport will exceed design capacity within 3-5 years at current growth rates.

Surprisingly PVG is larger than Daxing airport even with 5 runways only

Well, they should first remove military airspace first to fit commercial aircraft

Begues wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

We already have unused open airports.

Do you have any example of that? As far as I know there are no unused open airports in China, in fact, pretty much all commercial airports in China that have yet to be expanded are handling more passengers than they were designed for, even new airports with enormous terminals like Kunming and Shenzhen are already above design capacity and are already building new terminals and runways. Guangzhou before the new terminal opened was running at close to 200% of design capacity and even with the new 7 million sq feet terminal opened just a few months ago the airport will exceed design capacity within 3-5 years at current growth rates.

Luloang, 5 flights per day:
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/ ... -factories

Others:
https://m.scmp.com/business/economy/art ... y-airports

I simply do not see a need for hundreds of new airports.

What is the name of the airport between Sezuan and Canton. Is it opperating?

As I stated before, the first 5 airports on that list will grow to become mega-hubs.

maverick4002 wrote:

How busy is PVG? I was there within the last few weeks. Landed at 730pm ish on a Sunday and though we used a remote stand, the actual airport didnt seem to busy. I also left on a Monday at about 1pm and again, the terminal airport didnt seem that busy.

In 2017 PVG handled 70 million passengers with 2 terminals designed to handle 60 million combined, it will close 2018 handling about 74 million passengers.

lightsaber wrote:

I simply do not see a need for hundreds of new airports.

So I have been saying the same for some 20+ years now, I even questioned the need for PVG in the first place back in the mid 90s. Yet here we are decades later and there seems to be nothing slowing down the growth. In fact, even the huge railway expansions in China with high speed rail connecting all major urban centers has failed to impact the growth in chinese air traffic.


The politburo believe that they can double passenger numbers in the 2020s, just like they thought they could double them in the 2010s and the 2000s in which cases they were actually right. Now I'm no communist defender, in fact i think it is the worst political system ever invented, but the reality is that for all the trillions upon trillions wasted, they still have managed to hit their growth projections pretty much spot on for the last 30 years. Whether that will continue of not, only time will tell.

lightsaber wrote:

Begues wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

We already have unused open airports.

Do you have any example of that? As far as I know there are no unused open airports in China, in fact, pretty much all commercial airports in China that have yet to be expanded are handling more passengers than they were designed for, even new airports with enormous terminals like Kunming and Shenzhen are already above design capacity and are already building new terminals and runways. Guangzhou before the new terminal opened was running at close to 200% of design capacity and even with the new 7 million sq feet terminal opened just a few months ago the airport will exceed design capacity within 3-5 years at current growth rates.

Luloang, 5 flights per day:
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/ ... -factories

Others:
https://m.scmp.com/business/economy/art ... y-airports

I simply do not see a need for hundreds of new airports.

What is the name of the airport between Sezuan and Canton. Is it opperating?

As I stated before, the first 5 airports on that list will grow to become mega-hubs.

There are 44weekly flight depart from Luloang now, great 8% growth rate

Zoedyn wrote:

Top down(The 3rd column header in the graph is for the number of planned rwys, the 4th header for the area with hectare as unit)
Beijing Daxing/ZBAD 150M-170M
Beijing Capital/PEK 100M
Shanghai PVG 120M-130M
Guangzhou CAN 140M
Zhengzhou CGO 130M
Kunming KMG 120M
Wuhan WUH 120M
Xi'an XIY 120M
Nanjing NKG 100M
Harbin HRB 100M
Hangzhou HGH 95M
Chengdu Tianfu 90M

Very ambitious plans, esp those planned 100M airports in tier-2 provincial capitals
It’s also amazing Beijing would host two 100M airports in the same metro area

I doubt CGO, XIY, HRB and NKG can get very far. Certainly not 100m. At the same time it is shocking not to see a booming airport like SZX on the list (it would comfortably slot between CAN and KMG), and to see CTU and HGH so far down. And will Chengdu's existing Shuangliu Airport be demolished?

China's way to battle climate change.

As far as I understand this forum is to discuss, maybe less emotional but more fact-focused replies would be better.

There are several overlapping substances in China :
a) China likes the huge project and this is not communist invention, but valid for ages
b) newly built airports are finished with some reserve, which is to be quantified by an increase of air travelers and that is becoming with some efficiency /to build an airport where your predicted capacity is exhausted already when you cut the ribbon, is economic nonsense. This doesn't exclude some, where politically driven interest (local politicians economy interest or central government attempts to decrease social tensions) makes trouble. But this happens all over the world, Europe notwithstanding, albeit in a smaller scale. But I don't think this is in the scale of their vacancy in the housing sector (almost 20%).
c) as to the HSR network - core has been laid down and those main arteries - PEK-SHA, PEK-CAN are becoming rather crowdy so both will be duplicated and its already in pipe / first with the connection via Ganzhou and Nanchang, second via Qingdao and Tianjin/. Reserves I can see with trains where they don't use double deckers like in France, but still many of HSR units are substantially longer than in Europe. Be there for 5 weeks this year and used it 13 times. The system is running well /even I can't swallow boarding and security system in the stations /.
d) I have no doubt about PVG, CAN reach 100m in the future. But with others, we will see. CTU is not on the list because of the new airport to be finished in a couple of years southeast from the city
e) the horizon mentioned is 2035 so it means 17 years, let's look about history
airport 2000 2010 2017 diff
PEK/ZBAA 21 691 73 948 95 786 441,6%
PVG/ZSPD 5 544 40 579 70 001 1262,7%
CAN/ZGGG 12 791 40 976 65 807 514,5%
CTU/ZUUU 5 525 25 806 49 802 901,4%
SZX/ZGSZ 6 423 26 714 45 611 710,1%
KMG/ZPPP 5 604 20 192 44 728 798,1%
SHA/ZSSS 12 140 31 299 41 884 345,0%
XIY/ZLXY 3 879 18 010 41 857 1079,1%
CKG/ZUCK 2 780 15 802 38 715 1392,4%
HGH/ZSHC 2 492 17 069 35 570 1427,2%
NKG/ZSNJ 2 437 12 531 25 823 1059,8%
XMN/ZSAM 3 552 13 206 24 485 689,4%
CGO/ZHCC 1 517 8 708 24 299 1602,1%
CSX/ZGHA 2 035 12 621 23 765 1168,1%
TAO/ZSQD 2 432 11 101 23 211 954,6%
WUH/ZHHH 1 757 11 647 23 129 1316,6%
HAK/ZJHK 4 363 8 774 22 585 517,7%
URC/ZWWW 1 598 9 148 21 501 1345,8%
TSN/ZBTJ 884 7 277 21 005 2375,1%
SYX/ZJSY 655 9 294 19 390 2962,6%
HRB/ZYHB 1 575 7 260 18 810 1194,3%

Yes certainly there is kind of saturation, limits on resources, railway and highway system in place etc.. But still just 8% growth for several years means tens of millions plus /even with moderate growth of GDP there is an only slight correlation with the growth of air traffic /. In absolute numbers, top 100 airports in China add 124 mil passengers in 2017, growth by12,5%.

The main problem I see is the efficiency of the system, airspace usage, government (local and central) subsidies, pilot shortage. In several cases delay in airport replace (Qingdao, Xiamen, Dalian). But compare it to India, where the infrastructure is hardly matching demand, with similar political disruptions to the system / here I count infrastructure planning failure and inactivity, subsidies to defunct national carrier etc./

*For those, focused on details: I'm aware, that some airports in the table didn't exist in 2000/2010 so the figures are from their predecessors serving the cities. Be generous. In China some projects are very fast, so I was as well the victim of the old underground scheme in Google maps and had to travel backward two stations to new underground line 11 to Shenzen airport this September.

to Strato2:

China's way to battle climate change

Your advice, examples from other countries ...?

Zoedyn wrote:

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-12-12/china-aims-to-have-450-airports-by-2035-almost-doubling-its-current-number-of-airports-as-part-of-the-countrys-ambition-to-build-itself-into-an-aviation-power-its-aviation-regulator-said-101358500.html

The CAAC has recently announced its aim to double the number of airports in China to 450 by 2035 in a new industry plan released this week in a bid to build the country into an aviation power, as per the Caixin report

The plan comes as the government switches gears on infrastructure spending, with growth in investment falling to historic lows during the first nine months of the year

Separately, in a recent keynote speech at Hub Airport Construction & Future Airport Development Summit in Guangzhou (http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2018-12 ... 9006.shtml), Mr Liu Chunchen, a CAAC official responsible for airport affairs, disclosed that CAAC has charted a blueprint for twelve 100M airports across mainland China in the foreseeable future, as shown in the graph below


Top down(The 3rd column header in the graph is for the number of planned rwys, the 4th header for the area with hectare as unit)
Beijing Daxing/ZBAD 150M-170M
Beijing Capital/PEK 100M
Shanghai PVG 120M-130M
Guangzhou CAN 140M
Zhengzhou CGO 130M
Kunming KMG 120M
Wuhan WUH 120M
Xi'an XIY 120M
Nanjing NKG 100M
Harbin HRB 100M
Hangzhou HGH 95M
Chengdu Tianfu 90M

Very ambitious plans, esp those planned 100M airports in tier-2 provincial capitals
It’s also amazing Beijing would host two 100M airports in the same metro area

I expected Chongqing Jiangbei to be in too. The scary thing is China had many of those megalomanic plans about infrastructure, cities, railways, harbors. But contrary to the west, they put on a million people and inject 100 billion and after 8-10 yrs they are ready, project completed.

Since the high speed rail we take serious these mind boggling projects. https://youtu.be/0JDoll8OEFE The electrification of public transport in bigger cities is as aggressive / successful. The time it takes us to agree, takes the Chinese to implement.

Western media hardly reports on the Chinese company and domestic developments, because they are not on the NASDAQ, the Chinese mind their own business and the non democratic, un-free nature combined with huge success makes us uncomfortable. we beat communism didn't we But spend a week in China & you know why they took over global production of about anything.

They need bigger airplanes fast. MANY more wide bodies for domestic travel. Today only the "luxury" type of people travel by air. Even railway sleeper cars are upper class travel.
Whenever their masses start to fly they entirely need those new airports.

Begues wrote:

The politburo believe that they can double passenger numbers in the 2020s, just like they thought they could double them in the 2010s and the 2000s in which cases they were actually right. Now I'm no communist defender, in fact i think it is the worst political system ever invented, but the reality is that for all the trillions upon trillions wasted, they still have managed to hit their growth projections pretty much spot on for the last 30 years. Whether that will continue of not, only time will tell.

I'm sure Europe and USA predicted and calculated as good as their growth of economic force of their population, during their industrialization period 50 years ago. Not that difficult task during the industrialization, can't fail much.

China actually stepped on the brakes with air travel development speed. Airlines were split into many new ones that had to begin from scratch with small airplanes. All the trunk route permits were coupled to services on remote routes. Sometime new airlines were even forced to pick remote places as their hubs by the government. The moment the communist party lifts those requirements the business will develop even faster.

This is the reason why China has not ordered more very large aircraft. All those small and mid size airlines had no time yet to grow into the big airplane dimensions. But they grow all the time and this is their next step. Many moved into wide body twins already. Quads are the next logical step.

Please, do you have evidence ?. It was more or less another way around - new entrants were established as a JV between existing big ones and local government, where the big ones felt that they can get local support (political, financial). Otherwise, it had no sense to have so many branches under one umbrella mostly with the same manner of operation (in opposite to Europe where established legacy founded their LC subsidiaries to fight with LCC's like Easyjet, Ryanair, Wizzair or Norwegian.
In fact planes are getting bigger even through upscale from A319 > A320 > A321 (this year Chinese airlines introduced 2 ,75, 33 planes). You can see the wide usage of widebodies in domestic transport, with almost 25 airports regularly served by wb.
There is no discussion that under pure business conditions development run faster, but Chinese authorities see this as a social issue as well notwithstanding development balance between Chinese east and west.
Btw old communist states know this from the past, you want to buy steak, you have to buy bone as well...

Please, do you have evidence ?

Yes I have but I cannot share details. That's politics and it affects real companies. Not hearsay.

lightsaber wrote:

The first 5 are needed. After that, this is becoming make work. Chinese aviation is growing, but not at the rate to double the quantity of airports. We already have unused open airports. There will not be ten superhubs. Five? Yes.

I think there's a competition between CGO/WUH/CSX to become a mid-China hub, and then a competition between CTU(incl.Tianfu)/CKG/KMG/XIY to be a western China hub. That lead to competing future prospects.

Many airports are needed. Hundreds are not. Not unless everyone with a low social score is allowed to buy a plane.

There is a correlation between corruption index and per capital income. IMHO, China us approaching that cap.

Late edit, China is at 41 (100 perfect) on corruption:
https://www.transparency.org/country/CHNuote="rbavfan"]

A better correlation on integrity and energy consumption vs. GNP per capital:
http://dougrobbins.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... s.html?m=1

There're still many towns with million population have no airport and many places especially in the west that need hours of drive to their closest airport. Surely they can at least support some commuter air field.

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

That's funny

Airspace will limit growth.[/quote]

Folks, China is different.

How?

Many parts of the country are transitioning from mid 19 th living standards to 21 st century in less than one generation.

There are people flying for the first time that up to 10 years ago never left their village.

China and the Chinese view travel as privilege not as a right. That might make us uncomfortable but not in China.

There is an old saying in China; to control the monkeys, chop off a chicken’s head.

China has seen caos and huge reversals over many centuries and is bound and determined to avoid this.

And the source of much of this has been poverty and starvation on a scale we can’t imagine combined w a demigod politician that takes the entire county down.

Big projects in far flung seemingly remote places w populations that exceed many western countries are designed to even things out.

And they combine this with carrots( travel, income growth) w a gradient of sticks( no travel to visits in the night to outright disappearance).

In short, sarcastic criticism often gets in the way of understanding which will allow us prevent the disasters that hasve accompanied counties that transitioned from feudalism to modernity in less than a generation ( japan, Germany, the Arab world, Napoleonic France).

Orlik wrote:

to Strato2:

China's way to battle climate change

Your advice, examples from other countries ...?

I think what was sarcastically being pointed out is that in "the west" it's almost impossible to get a new runway approved let alone a new airport (LHR3 is the classic. So to see a deliberate build of 100M capacity airports on this scale is totally out of synch with most public policy thinking across the world

VTCIE wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

Top down(The 3rd column header in the graph is for the number of planned rwys, the 4th header for the area with hectare as unit)
Beijing Daxing/ZBAD 150M-170M
Beijing Capital/PEK 100M
Shanghai PVG 120M-130M
Guangzhou CAN 140M
Zhengzhou CGO 130M
Kunming KMG 120M
Wuhan WUH 120M
Xi'an XIY 120M
Nanjing NKG 100M
Harbin HRB 100M
Hangzhou HGH 95M
Chengdu Tianfu 90M

Very ambitious plans, esp those planned 100M airports in tier-2 provincial capitals
It’s also amazing Beijing would host two 100M airports in the same metro area

I doubt CGO, XIY, HRB and NKG can get very far. Certainly not 100m. At the same time it is shocking not to see a booming airport like SZX on the list (it would comfortably slot between CAN and KMG), and to see CTU and HGH so far down. And will Chengdu's existing Shuangliu Airport be demolished?

Add CKG along with SZX. And can anybody explain how on earth CGO, XIY, HRB and NKG can reach 100m passengers, and will Chengdu's existing Shuangliu Airport be demolished?

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

Seriously, if the US can figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector I really don't get why China can't do the same.

Seriously, if the US can figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector I really don't get why China can't do the same.

This is not a technical or organizational issue, this is political issue and showdown who rules the country.. In Eastern Europe, we had similar systems and it took some time after 1989 to set up combined military and civil air services centers together and hand over general responsibility for airspace to civil hands. BTW even after that sometimes old soldiers acted like in the past with commands and bans where they should coordinate and control..
So it's about the importance of the army structures in a communist hierarchy and due to their natural loyalty to the regime, the regime doesn't want to take actions against their most loyal supporters.
So there is no doubt that country like China is not able to set up the functional and effective system, either on their own or with some foreign advice (at least taking into account actual absolute number of flights and increase of number flights and safety of aviation transport there).

Noshow wrote:

They need bigger airplanes fast. MANY more wide bodies for domestic travel.

There's been pretty significant upgauging on domestic trunk routes in the past five years, at least among the "big three" (Air China, China Eastern, China Southern) and Hainan Airlines. Nowadays most of the flights on those airlines from Beijing and Shanghai to major cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu are on A330s or 777s, which wasn't the case 8-10 years ago. Last month I even flew Beijing-Changchun on a (full) A330, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

The 737 and A320 are still *everywhere* in China, but I expect the upgauging trend to continue, and even accelerate as carriers like Juneyao Air, Shenzhen Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Xiamen Air receive more widebodies. Many of those widebodies will be used for international expansion, but they are definitely appearing on domestic routes as well.

Jouhou wrote:

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

Seriously, if the US can figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector I really don't get why China can't do the same.

My understanding is that it is because, in China, it is up to the Military to decide which air space are they going to keep for themselves and which air space are they going to give away to civil aviation. With the way the country is operated it's also a justified arrangement, with priority for party military over civil aviation.

If you describe the aviation market in America as "figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector", then maybe you can describe the Chinese situation as "figuring out how to make civil aviation not disruptive to military needs (and wants)"

c933103 wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

Prost wrote:

Any word on the military opening up more airspace?

Seriously, if the US can figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector I really don't get why China can't do the same.

My understanding is that it is because, in China, it is up to the Military to decide which air space are they going to keep for themselves and which air space are they going to give away to civil aviation. With the way the country is operated it's also a justified arrangement, with priority for party military over civil aviation.

If you describe the aviation market in America as "figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector", then maybe you can describe the Chinese situation as "figuring out how to make civil aviation not disruptive to military needs (and wants)"

Well, I mean we are a very much militarized country, but when I look in the sky at aircraft taking off and landing at the nearby airport, it's obvious our military has no issue sharing airspace, even when they are doing complex maneuvers for practice with large aircraft. I saw one overhead today and was like "what in the world is that plane doing?!! Oh, it's probably a kc135 practicing... something" . We don't really see any need to keep these activities so strictly separated. In china... they just cancel your flight whenever the military does *anything*

Jouhou wrote:

c933103 wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

Seriously, if the US can figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector I really don't get why China can't do the same.

My understanding is that it is because, in China, it is up to the Military to decide which air space are they going to keep for themselves and which air space are they going to give away to civil aviation. With the way the country is operated it's also a justified arrangement, with priority for party military over civil aviation.

If you describe the aviation market in America as "figure out how to make military flights not disruptive to the civilian sector", then maybe you can describe the Chinese situation as "figuring out how to make civil aviation not disruptive to military needs (and wants)"

Well, I mean we are a very much militarized country, but when I look in the sky at aircraft taking off and landing at the nearby airport, it's obvious our military has no issue sharing airspace, even when they are doing complex maneuvers for practice with large aircraft. I saw one overhead today and was like "what in the world is that plane doing?!! Oh, it's probably a kc135 practicing... something" . We don't really see any need to keep these activities so strictly separated. In china... they just cancel your flight whenever the military does *anything*

That's a different degree of magnitude of "militarized". To put it in another way, one of the reason (excuse) the Chinese government used to maintain the integrity of the way they rule the country is by claiming their success in driving away Japan and RoC in WWII and post-WWII era, and that they claims they are able to let everyone live securely in the country without any more worry about being invaded by others, which include threats like Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, India, Japan, Soviet Russia back then, and America now, and such. There's little to no reason to loosen up or even just appears to loosen up the security for economy or needs of people as that's what the country exists for and the reason why it can continue to exists.

http://www.iaion.com/js/101290.html

CAAC has recently unveiled a mid-term revised list of planned construction projects for China's civil transport airports during the 13th five-year plan period (2016-2020)

Highlights:

* 30 airports currently under construction will continue to be built, eg, Beijing Daxing/ZBAD, Chengde/CDE, Zhalantun/NCL

* 43 new airports will be built, eg, Suifenhe, Wuxuan, Jingzhou

* 125 existing airports will be renovated/expanded, eg, Guanghzou/CAN, Shenzhen/SZX, Nantong/NTG

* 17 existing airports will be relocated, eg, Hohhot/HET, Xiamen/XMN, Lianyungang/LYG

* Another 48 airports that are planned to get either newly built or relocated could begin initial preparatory work, eg, Guangzhou new airport, Sanya new airport, Yanji/YNJ

A very impressive list, particularly the category of airports to be renovated/expanded

Africa 52 countries, population 1.2 billion people

China 1.2 billion people.