The swiftly growing ecommerce market has led to China’s air cargo volumes reaching an all-time high of 20.06m tonnes in 2024 – up nearly 20% on the 16.8m tonnes carried in 2023.
The capacity increase out of China was 25%, as key airports enjoyed double-digit growth; indeed, according to the Civil Aviation Resource Net of China, Shanghai Pudong was the busiest for air cargo and mail, handling 3.77m tonnes last year, up 10%.
Shanghai Pudong added 10 destinations and restored eight routes, particularly medium and long-distance and ‘Belt and Road’-related routes. Emerging as a global aviation hub, the airport now covers 291 destinations in 48 countries.
Guangzhou Baiyun International was ranked second-busiest cargo hub, with 2.38m tonnes, up 17% year on year, with Shenzhen Bao’an International third, handling 1.88m tonnes, up 18% on 2023. Cargo and mail volumes at both hit new records in 2024.
Beijing Capital International’s cargo volumes ranked it the fourth-busiest, up 18% at 1.32m tonnes. However, the airport’s cargo processing levels remain lower than before Covid, as the number of flights decreased with passenger traffic still depleted.
However, United Cargo is to launch a new thrice-weekly service between Los Angeles and Beijing in May. In an interview this week, Jan Krems, president of United Cargo, said freight on the route had helped the airline decide on the new service.
“I mean, [you look at] how much cargo you can contribute towards a destination like Beijing. If you talk about maybe $100,000 per flight one way, that’s really important.”
Ezhou Huahu Airport, a hub for Chinese 3PL SF Express, has grown significantly, becoming China’s fifth-busiest cargo airport within two years of opening, handling 1.02m tonnes last year.
Zhengzhou, the Cargolux hub, which seems to have attracted increasing numbers of airlines recently, is not on the list, but its cargo volume for 2024 is estimated at more than 800,000 tonnes, a 27-year high. And its outbound capacity grew 28.9% over 2023, according to Rotate’s capacity database.
Indeed, capacity out of mainland China grew 25% over 2023, according to Rotate. Shanghai showed the least capacity growth, at 9.4%, while Shenzhen was up 29% year on year and Guangzhou saw a 15.2% rise in outbound capacity.
By passenger arrivals, the rankings were similar: Shanghai Pudong saw 76.8 million passenger arrivals, up 41% on 2023, matching pre-pandemic levels; for Guangzhou Baiyun, 76.37m, up 21%; Beijing Capital, 67.37m, up 27%; and Shenzhen Bao’an, 61.48m, up 17%.
Of note, the three airports (Haikou Meilan, Sanya Phoenix, and Qionghai Bo’ao) on Hainan Island, which the Chinese government is developing as a shipping and aviation centre, also showed higher passenger arrivals. Collectively, the three, all operated by Hainan Airport Group, were the fifth-busiest for passenger flights, having handled 54.58m passengers, a 3% increase on 2023.