Soaring traffic volumes in passengers and cargo at Shanghai's principal airports in Pudong and Hongqiao, may prompt the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to curtail budget carriers, some cargo airlines and general aviation operations and force them to relocate to either Nantong in Jiangsu Province, or Jiaxing or Ningbo in neighboring Zhejiang Province, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Quoting Jiang Huaiyu, a director of CAAC's East China division. the paper said that over the past 30 years, the combined annual passenger traffic at Pudong and Hongqiao has risen by almost 160
percent to 80 million, while cargo turnover has tripled in the period to more than 3 million tonnes a year.
Jiang did not offer any concrete plans or give a time frame for the move, nor did he identify any of the affected airlines or cargo operators.
According to the latest figures from Airports Council International (ACI), Shanghai's Pudong Airport ranked third among the world's busiest airports in 2014, with a throughput of 3.2 million
tonnes, growing 8.6 percent compared with the year-earlier period.
Nol van Fenema
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