airports Lessons from the high seas
THERE’S A CAUTIONARY tale for Hong Kong International airport lying just down the road at Kwai Chung. This is the Special Administrative Region’s sea container port and it has suffered in a way that the air gateway could learn from. Until 2005, Hong Kong was the
world’s busiest container port, vaunted for its awesome efficiency, but often castigated for its high prices (the highest in the world) and its
troublesome trucking links with the China mainland. It now lies third behind Singapore
and Shanghai, with Shenzhen also lapping at its feet. Simply put, Hong Kong’s sea port was too far away from the main cargo base to justify its costs. Now, critics are going as far as calling for the whole port complex to be redeveloped into a prime property site. Hong Kong – which translates
literally from the Chinese language as Fragrant Harbour – is seeing its trading heritage forced aside as central government goes out of its way to make Shanghai an international maritime centre by 2020.
China Southern – the main carrier at busy Guangzhou The new chairman of the airport, Wang Yang, has set out
the agenda to make the airport a world-class facility within the next two and a half years. This will see a second runway and a third terminal opened. Last year, mail and cargo throughput at the gateway broke 600,000 tons, making the airport the 24th biggest freight airport in the world. The goal for this year is 700,000 tons. It is a little known fact that the rather anonymous city
of Dongguan, sandwiched in the middle of the Pearl River Delta, is China’s third-largest exporting powerhouse after Shanghai and Shenzhen. With the recent unveiling of the Shenzhen Airport Dongguan Terminal, regional shippers have a faster way to reach overseas markets. Located in the Nancheng district of Dongguan, some 40 minutes by road from Shenzhen airport, the terminal offers services such as cargo examination, waybill entering and ground transportation. At the cargo handling area of Shenzhen airport, there is a green channel for preferential processing of Dongguan cargo.
GUANGZHOU CHALLENGE Despite Shenzhen’s quick ascent, it is Guangzhou Baiyun International airport and its home-based carrier China Southern Airlines that present the greatest challenge to
28 AIR LOGISTICSCHINA
Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific Cargo. The Guangzhou Baiyun gateway has vast amounts of capacity for freight and the gloves have come off in public to attract more business by highlighting its competitive prices – and shippers are impressed with Baiyun’s efficiency, as well as its very strong hinterland links. At the opening of the gateway’s latest bonded
warehouses at the end of March this year, an executive at the Guangdong airport noted: “Our cost is only about 20 percent to 30 percent of Hong Kong. We have great advantages in price.” This claim agrees with the comments of China Southern
officials in January when the airline opened a bonded logistics centre, which they claimed was nearly 80 percent cheaper than similar facilities in Hong Kong. With the arrival of FedEx, which moved its Asia Pacific
hub to Guangzhou in February 2009 from the Philippines, the airport’s cargo throughput hit 960,000 tons by the end of last year, up by 39.3 percent on the prior year. Commentators point out that the obvious threat to
Hong Kong’s continued air prominence lies in Beijing and Shanghai, but the real challenges may lie closer to home as Shenzhen and Guangzhou both snap at the heels of Hong Kong’s air cargo business.
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