Cornerstone laid for Construction of China Southern Airlines’ Base at Beijing’s New Airport

On October 10th, China Southern Air Holding Company (hereinafter referred to as “China Southern Airlines”) held the cornerstone laying ceremony for its base in the new airport of Beijing. The base project involves the construction of 5 major functional areas, serving production and living needs for over 20,000 employees of the company. Grounded on its new Beijing airport base, China Southern Airlines will fully mobilize its resources to make the capital a key hub with networks that cover both domestic and international routes. A total of 250 aircraft is expected to be put under operation by 2025.

The 5 functional areas under China Southern Airlines’ new Beijing airport base project, including operational and affordable housing, dormitories for single employees working on shifts, in-flight food area, aircraft maintenance area, and freight transport area, occupy 36 individual buildings in 6 plots. The base takes up a total area of approximately 62 hectares and the planned scale of construction is 1.0869 million square meters, to be completed in a construction period of 650 days.

According to the development scheme, China Southern Airlines expects to invest 250 aircraft in the new Beijing airport by 2025 to account for over 900 take-offs and landings on a daily basis. The airline also plans to allocate more than 20,000 people to the new Beijing airport as its labor investment in order to match the scale of capacity input.

Speaking from China Southern Airlines’ flight route network in the whole, Beijing is not only the critical junction that connects the aviation markets in the Northeast and Northwest China, but also the most ideal hub that links up the northeastern market to its southern counterpart. Furthermore, it is also the optimal node for international routes to become connected to the three domestic markets. According to China Southern Airlines’ strategic layout, Beijing will exploit its unique geographical advantages and function as the gateway that joins the airline’s South, Northeast, and Northwest networks to gradually form an international-domestic compound aviation center. As the strategic base that makes up airline’s shortfall in long-haul intercontinental flights to Europe and Americas and enhances its network products, the Beijing base will act in coordination with the Guangzhou hub in a “dual hub” strategic layout. Meanwhile, as members of the SKYTEAM alliance move into Beijing’s new airport and ally with China Southern Airlines to build up the international aviation hub, the latter’s economies of scale and competitiveness will also be effectively elevated.