Beijing Airport plans to halt the erosion of its share of air cargo flown in and out of northern China and reclaim its role as the natural air-freight hub of the region, according to Desmond Shum, a vice-chairman and chief executive of the capital's Airport City Development.
For years, Beijing had been overlooked in favour of larger mainland rival Shanghai Airport and South Korea's Incheon Airport, Shum said, but the capital was now poised to recoup its share of the cargo business through the launch of an airport-based free-trade zone in the first quarter of next year.
'It is unreasonable that about 80 per cent of air cargo generated from Shandong in northern China is bypassing Beijing for Shanghai and Incheon at present,' Shum said.
Shanghai Airport last year handled 2.6 million tonnes of cargo, compared with Beijing's 1.4 million tonnes.
While this imbalance could be explained partly by the concentration of high-technology manufacturing plants in the south's Yangtze River Delta area, Beijing also had itself to blame because it had neglected the air-freight and logistics services at the airport, Shum said.
'Beijing has not spent sufficient time developing the cargo business and focused too much on passengers,' he said.