For decades, Singapore and Hong Kong have reigned supreme as key transit points connecting travelers in Asia to and from the rest of the world.
However, now, a US$1 trillion global airport spree is threatening the status quo.
About half that money is due to be spent on upgrading or building new airports in Asia, the Sydney-based CAPA Centre for Aviation estimates.
Photo: EPA
In Beijing, a new US$12.9 billion airport due to open in 2019 would turn China’s capital into one of the world’s biggest aviation hubs.
Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport is set for 117 billion baht (US$3.5 billion) of upgrades through 2021, including a third runway.
South Korea’s Incheon International Airport is spending 5 trillion won (US$4.5 billion) on a second terminal as it aims to become “the world’s leading mega-hub airport.”
As part of efforts to keep up, Singapore’s Changi Airport this month unveiled a S$1.3 billion (US$950 million) fourth terminal. Hong Kong, meanwhile, plans to fill in part of the South China Sea to make room for a third runway — at a cost of HK$141.5 billion (US$18 billion).
“It’s a race between global hubs,” said Torbjorn Karlsson, partner in the civil aviation practice at Korn Ferry International in Singapore. “The question is who are going to be the big winners.”
According to CAPA research published on Thursday last week, about US$255 billion is earmarked to build new airports worldwide, with another US$845 billion to be spent on upgrades, such as extra runways and terminals. All told, the construction work stretches out to 2069, CAPA said.
New airports in Asia will soak up more than US$125 billion, compared with just US$3.6 billion on brand new sites in the US and Canada, CAPA said.
The new developments are an identity crisis in-waiting for Hong Kong and Singapore. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and Singapore Airlines Ltd have made their names in the jet era ferrying visitors in and out of the cities and onward.
“Twenty years ago, airports were just sitting there waiting for airlines to come and fly there,” said Joanna Lu, who specializes in airports and route networks as the Hong Kong-based head of Asian advisory at Flight Ascend Consultancy. “Things change very quickly. It’s hard to say the transfer market is going to be always yours.”
In China, carriers such as China Southern Airlines Co (中國南方航空) are carrying so many first-time fliers each year that aviation authorities plan to create a mega-airport cluster almost within sight of Hong Kong.
China Southern, Hainan Airlines Holding Co (海南航空) and Chengdu Airlines Co (成都航空) have opened new routes from second and third-tier Chinese cities that go straight to the US and Europe, bypassing Hong Kong.
“They have the potential to redraw the travel flows,” Karlsson said.
China Southern, one of the nation’s three largest state-run carriers, wants to turn its home base at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport — less than 150km from Hong Kong — into China’s primary transfer hub to Australia and Southeast Asia, it said in May.
Even closer to Hong Kong, the Civil Aviation Administration of China aims to build a cluster of airports around Shenzhen, the Chinese city on Hong Kong’s northern fringes, and do the same around Beijing and Shanghai.
By 2036, China’s domestic air-travel traffic is to quadruple to 1.6 billion passengers, or 1.3 flights for each person per year, according to Airbus SE.
Hong Kong’s answer? Fill with cement a stretch of coastal water larger than New York’s Central Park. Next, lay down a 3.8km runway and build a passenger building bigger than the White House compound. Then roll out a 2.6km transport link to connect an estimated 30 million new travelers with the existing terminals.
Hong Kong International Airport last year almost maxed out as it handled 71 million passengers. Its development project is so vast that authorities are demanding between HK$70 and HK$180 from each passenger flying out of Hong Kong to help fund the construction. That is on top of increasing parking and landing fees for airlines by as much as 27 percent.
Infrastructure and capacity on their own do not guarantee success. Already, not all airlines want to use Hong Kong’s customized check-in kiosks, self-service immigration gates do not work if there are not enough staff to monitor them and security queues are long because the system cannot process bags fast enough, said Will Horton, a Hong Kong-based analyst at CAPA.
“Not all infrastructure is created equally,” Horton said. “Airports need to think big, but also significantly consider the unglamorous task of making better use of floor space and checkpoints.”
At Changi Airport, the new fourth terminal is due to open by the end of this year. It is to feature dozens of automated check-in kiosks and bag-drop counters, according to a media briefing on Tuesday.
Changi is to be the first airport in the world to use tomography scanners, which means passengers do not need to take laptops out of their bags for screening.
The new terminal is to increase total capacity from 66 million to 82 million. Last year, it handled a record 58.7 million passengers.
Singapore is already working on a third runway and a fifth terminal due to be completed in the late 2020s.
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