Hunan will make all-out efforts to enhance its air transport capacity this year, according to the conference on advancing the high-quality development of civil aviation in Hunan Province recently.
According to the conference, Hunan will continuously expand investment in airport infrastructure and optimize air route planning, aiming to achieve a new milestone of over 40 million passenger trips annually.
In 2024, Hunan's airports handled 36.73 million passenger trips, hitting a record high. Air freight routes link Hunan with five major economies—the EU, ASEAN, the United States, Africa, and the Middle East, with an annual cargo and mail handling capacity of 450,000 tonnes.
In 2025, Hunan will pace up the Changsha Airport renovation and expansion project, striving to complete a paid-in investment of 6.5 billion CNY. Specifically, the refined decorations of public areas in the T3 terminal building will be completed; the Global Translator Community (GTC) will pass the acceptance inspection; the third runway in the airfield area will get through a flight check; and, other sub-projects will progress as scheduled, so as to ensure the accomplishment of flight inspections in October 2025, completion of construction in June 2026, and opening to operation in October 2026.
Meanwhile, the Loudi airport will secure approval for its feasibility study report and launch the construction of its pilot section. The Zhangjiajie Airport expansion project is expected to be qualified for operation.
The operation of the express air routes between Hunan and Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan, and Sichuan will be optimized, while the frequency of the flights towards Xi'an, Urumqi, Kunming, Chongqing, and Xiamen will be increased.
Internationally, Hunan will strive to build an Africa-oriented air transport hub and a major channel linking central China with the RCEP countries, with one or two international air freight routes launched or resumed.
Polices will be rolled out to guide airlines to enhance their transport capacity by using more wide-body aircrafts.
Priority will be given to develop the high-quality development of inbound tourism. Aviation-tourism integrated products will be planned to further enhance air-rail intermodal transport service.