A Glorious Future

-- Interview with Liu Zijing, President of Guangdong Airport Management Group

China Today: Which of the developments that have taken place at the Guangdong Airport Management Group and the Baiyun International Airport during the Tenth Five-Year Plan are most significant?

Liu Zijing: The past five years has been a challenging period for our group. We finished one of the most important projects ever taken on by the province – that of constructing the new Baiyun International Airport, installing in it world standard facilities and equipment and accomplishing an overnight transfer from the old to the new airport. This was an outstanding achievement in both Chinese and international aviation history.

Baiyun is the first airport in China with the capacity to operate simultaneous instrument control of two parallel runways, and the Baiyun Airport Co., Ltd stock market listing has maintained a good blue chip record. We have implemented our localization reform with the support of the Guangdong provincial and Guangzhou municipal governments. Our group is now under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Province and administrated by Guangzhou municipality. This arrangement allows greater scope for further development.

China Today: The next five years will bring still more opportunities for Baiyun International Airport. What are the main development objectives of the Guangdong Airport Management Group for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan?
Liu Zijing: The national policy for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan is one of scientific development, and the aim of our group encompasses a strategic Eleventh Five-Year Plan target. This consists of opening 50 new international air routes handling a passenger volume of 38 to 40 million, a freight volume of 1.6 to 2 million tons, a passenger transit rate of over 15 percent, and a freight transshipment rate of over 30 percent. We also hope to upgrade our airport service to a level that will take it into the world top ten. Our long-term objective is to make Baiyun Airport a major aviation hub in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, with passenger and freight throughputs that rank within the respective world top 15 and 10. Shantou and Zhanjiang Airports will be constructed into important trunk line airports on the south coast, and Meixian Airport will be built into a major feeder line airport on the borders of Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces. We intend to raise staff salaries and make our company a world-class airport management group.

China Today: What does achieving the strategic aims of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan entail?

Liu Zijing: We will concentrate on the construction of major facilities. An investment of 11.4 billion is planned for the project to expand Baiyun International Airport by constructing the FedEx Asian hub. During the first half of 2006, eight embarkation points on the southeast apron of the airport will go into operation, and in the first half of 2007, construction of two aprons, one with 25 berths for passengers planes and one with 10 berthes for cargo planes will be completed. During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the airport’s passenger handling volume is expected to reach 38 to 40 million, and its freight volumeto reach 16 to 20 million tons.
Another task will be to press on with the projects to expand Baiyun International Airport and construct Chaoshan Airport. Construction and expansion of other airports managed by the group will ensure that the group’s hardware facilities meet the current demands of the aviation market. We will upgrade our marketing and increase our number of flights to the maximum and continue to improve our service quality, to the extent that Baiyun will be included in the world top ten airports that offer the best service.
We plan to build an airport development area in which to develop logistics, trade and certain processing industries, and to reinforce our resource management. Improvements to the capital operation mechanism will increase our capital utilization rate, and through integrated use of the group information resources we can set up a complete computerized enterprise information management system. We also intend to establish a system of unified human resources management and development.

China Today: These are ambitious targets. What makes you so confident that you can achieve them all during the 11th Five-Year Plan?

Liu Zijing: Our confidence is based on the group’s advantages and solid teamwork.

We have a good marketing environment as, thanks to the reform and opening policy, the southern Chinese provinces have maintained high economic growth. The economic volume of Guangdong Province accounts for one-ninth of the national whole and it has maintained a number one ranking in the country for many years.

We have rich airport resources; in addition to Baiyun as a hub airport, we also possess the Shantou, Zhanjiang and Meixian trunk and branch line airports, which stimulate and complement each other in bringing about all- around development of airports in the region.

We are in an advanced geographical position by virtue of Guangzhou’s status as a main city in the Asia-Pacific region. Airlines from Guangzhou fly to Southeast Asia and the continents of Europe, America, Africa and the Pacific region. There are also numerous daily domestic flights to and from Guangzhou. Baiyun international airport, therefore, is ideal for international transits.

Our advanced hardware facilities make Baiyun International Airport the best in the country. It is the first airport in China designed and built according to the hub concept. The airport’s Regional Aviation Control Center is one of the three major air traffic control hubs administrated by CAAC. The center gathers timely and accurate flying information and can transmit navigation information to up to 1,500 planes simultaneously.

Baiyun-based airlines are also crucial to the airport’s development. The include China Southern Airlines, which has the largest aircrew and densest flight network of any in China. Almost 400 of its flights take off from and land at Baiyun International Airport every day. Shenzhen Airlines is in the process of developing its Guangzhou branch in order to offer more air routes originating from Guangzhou. By 2010, the Shenzhen Airlines Guangzhou branch is expected to transport 7 million passengers annually. Other Chinese airline companies, such as Air China, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Hainan Airlines also plan to set up their base at Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou.

The FedEx Asia-Pacific Hub at Baiyun International Airport will go into operation in 2008, by which time, around 150 planes will land there on FedEx business every week. The operation of the FedEx hub is expected to attract 800,000 to 1 million tons of cargo to the airport in the first year.

Baiyun Airport has convenient and multi-level transportation. Most main cities in the Pearl River Delta can be reached within two hours via the radial expressway network. The expressway network also provides easy access to railways and water ports.

Airports administrated by the group have huge development potential. The reserved land surrounding Baiyun International Airport is flat, which means low development costs and broad development space. Preparations for construction of the new Chaoshan Airport are underway, and Zhanjiang and Meixian airports are soon to be expanded.