The Belt and Road Initiative is extending its reach to China's airports. Case in point - Urumqi airport in western China, the region's busiest airport, now serves as a major gateway to Central Asia, Europe, and beyond.
Li Bin is a captain from China Southern Airlines, today his crew are in charge of a flight from Urumqi to Almaty. As China allocates more international air routes to regional capitals like Urumqi, Li and his colleagues are going to fly more of those routes.
“We have flight routes that go over the Pamirs and The Chogori. We have undergone simulations and training for possible scenarios like single engine failure and decompression so that we can handle them swiftly and correctly,” said Li.
The Urumqi airport is also the second largest base of China Southern Airlines, one of the nation's three major airlines. Their goal is to build an international airline with world-class cabin service.
The China Southern Airlines has selected an elite team for international air routes. “We have an advantage in serving passengers from central Asia as our crew is comprised of people who speak various languages from Kazak to Uyghur to Russian to Mongolian,” said Yang Xiaohui, a cabin crew chief from China Southern Airlines.
The Airplane Operating Control Center ensures airport efficiency. On-time performance reached 89 percent in the first quarter of the year.
The country aims to transform the Urumqi Airport into the main passageway connecting Central Asia and Europe. In March, the airport welcomed a new airline, offering nonstop flights from Guangzhou to Nursultan, the capital of Kazakhstan. Also, this June, another air route will take passengers to Vienna, Austria. Regular cargo flights from Norway now bring fresh salmon every week. This summer, fruit from Central Asia will also be flown here.
“Those fresh products will greatly stimulate the local market, and make Urumqi a hub for European and Central Asian products in western China,” said Li Meixiang, General Manager of Tianyuan International Logistics Co., Ltd.
And Urumqi is not the only airport with ambitious plans. Others in border regions across China have all set goals to boost capacity for international transportation.
According to Liu Chunchen, Director General of Airport Department, Civil Aviation Administration of China,China is focusing on building 10 major international aviation hubs, with Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou topping the list. The rest of the 10 cities are Urumqi, Harbin, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shenzhen, and Kunming. “Building world-class airport clusters and international aviation hubs are the core of our nation's airport system,” said Liu.
Authorities are also promoting a Chinese standard for airports with four principles: safe, green, smart and humane.
Since China presented the Belt and Road Initiative six years ago, China has built 27 new airports, and 200 more are planned.
(CGTN)