Opinion - News Analysis   

On the runway and ready for take-off

Pallavi Aiyar

Given China's current airport infrastructure and its expansion plans, India's task of catching up becomes formidable.

THE DISTANCE Indian airports have to go before catching up with those in China just increased. Beijing, currently in the process of expanding its Capital International Airport into the world's largest, has announced plans to build a second airport.

China's capital already boasts an immaculate international gateway connected to the city by a silken-smooth six-lane highway. At current capacity the airport can handle 35 million passengers and 780,000 tonnes of cargo every year. But with passenger traffic expected to exceed 60 million per annum by 2015, the decision to construct a vast new terminal was taken a few years ago and is expected to be ready by next year having taken three years to build.

The $2 billion new Terminal-3 is designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster, and when complete will make Beijing's Capital International Airport larger in size than both the current biggest airports, Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong and Heathrow in the U.K. The aim is for the expanded airport to be able to handle 60 million passengers and 1.8 million tonnes of cargo annually by 2015.

But even the largest airport in the world has not been deemed adequate. The official China Daily reported on Monday that plans are on for a second airport, to be built after the Olympic Games in 2008. It will either be situated around 30 kilometres south of the city at Nanyuan, the current site for Beijing's special military airfield, or even further out in adjoining Hebei province, around 40 km from downtown Beijing.

Initial work was done on finding a site for a second airport for the capital in 2003, but the scheme was suspended when it was decided to expand the Capital Airport instead. The decision to once again press ahead with the second airport is linked to the attempt to develop and integrate Beijing's adjoining areas, including the port city of Tianjin and Hebei province, into an economic powerhouse resembling the Shanghai-Zhejiang-Jiangsu region or what is known as the Yangtse River Delta (YRD).

While the YRD has emerged as a serious rival to China's primary hub of economic activity, the Guangdong-centred Pearl River Delta (PRD), the regions around Beijing have remained relatively backward. Neighbouring Hebei province, for example, is one of the least developed parts of China and has failed to capitalise on its proximity to Beijing. The second airport, which will most likely be located in Hebei, is thus part of the Government's strategic push to develop a third economic hub in the north to rival the southern PRD and YRD.

According to Wang Kun Zhi, Director Airport Construction Division, Civil Aviation Authority of China, Beijing realises that airports are fundamental to economic growth. Moreover the first impressions they constitute give them a symbolic importance that matches their practical use. Thus China will spend 140 billion yuan ($17.4 billion) over the next five years to expand airport infrastructure adding 44 new airports, besides the extant 142 airports, by 2010.

For India to play catch up will be a formidable task indeed.

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