The passenger turnover at Shenzhen International Airport in 2019 hit a new record of 50 million yesterday, the airport said.
A traveler surnamed Meng, who was taking Shenzhen Airlines flight ZH9803, became the airport’s 50 millionth passenger this year and received a gift ticket from Zhou Zhiwei, secretary of the Shenzhen Airlines CPC committee.
The number of international passengers using the Shenzhen airport also marked a milestone by surpassing 5 million.
The Shenzhen airport now operates more than 50 international routes linking the city with the rest of the world.
In 1991, when the Shenzhen airport was put into operation, its passenger turnover reached 1 million in a year, then a miracle in China’s civil aviation development. After the opening of T3 in 2013, the passenger turnover reached 30 million a year, but the turnover of international passengers only accounted for about 5 percent of the total.
A great change took place in 2016 after the national Five-Year Program upgraded the Shenzhen airport from a trunk route airport into an international air hub. China Southern Airlines opened the intercontinental route to Sydney in January 2016.
Between 2016 and 2018, a dozen international routes were put into use per year. In the first half of this year, nine international routes were put into service.
The airport is working to ensure the share of international passengers reaches 10 percent of total passengers by the end of 2020.
By 2025, the number of overseas destinations for flights from the Shenzhen airport will reach 100. By 2030, the passenger turnover will reach 80 million and international passenger turnover will make up 25 percent of the total.
To attain the goal, the airport is working on the construction of a satellite hall that will add 22 million passengers a year to the airport’s total capacity upon completion by 2021.
The X-shaped satellite hall project includes 56 boarding bridges and is located between T3 in the south and the runways. It will connect to T3 by an underground fast transit system.
T3, which was opened at the end of 2013, was designed to serve 45 million passengers a year.
The city will start building T4 and a third runway in 2020 on 4.2 million square meters of land that has been reclaimed from the sea.