Creaking at the seams

Airports across Asia are bursting at the seams, straining to handle the rapidly growing number of passengers flying in and out aboard an ever-increasing numbers of jets joining the region’s airline fleets. While billions of dollars are being spent on infrastructure improvements, is it enough to solve a looming congestion crisis?

The name Chongqing is probably unfamiliar to most people, even in Asia. Some 1,700 kilometres west of Shanghai, it is Western China’s largest city and its Jiangbei International Airport has a potential pool of 50 million travelers to draw on.

Which is why, in August, the airport opened a third terminal and a third runway to cater for growth. It’s passenger traffic has doubled since 2010, with more than 35 million passing through the hub last year. The latest expansion has raised the airport’s annual capacity to 60 million and further work is planned after 2020 to lift that to 70 million. It may be regarded as a second-tier Chinese city but it already has direct flights to such destinations as Los Angeles, London, Rome, Helsinki and Doha, and Hainan Airlines is planning to launch a new non-stop service from Chongqing to New York.