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William Kazer

At last, Shanghai may be getting serious about its beloved Pudong airport. It is calling in the consultants.

Some 2.5 years after the airport's grand opening, aviation officials are hoping a few adjustments will, one day, make Pudong a regional hub.

According to the official Jiefang Daily, the airport has some 'shortcomings', and officials have brought in the Netherlands Airport Consultants Co (Naco) to look at possible changes as the airport expands in the future.

The Pudong International Airport is a pleasant enough place these days.

Its bold architecture is easy on the eye, it has some of the most modern equipment on the mainland and not too much baggage gets lost there. Better yet, it is quiet. Quiet enough that even a fussy librarian would find it a suitable place to work.

Unfortunately, aviation authorities fail to appreciate the airport's obvious attributes. Apparently, they have enough quiet office space to study the bottom line on the airport's financial statements. They see the lack of traffic and revenue as something of a problem if not an outright embarrassment.

The Pudong airport was built at a cost of US$1.57 billion to ensure that Shanghai kept pace with the growing demand for air transport. The city's older Hongqiao airport, with its single runway, was operating close to capacity but expansion was considered too costly so near heavily populated areas.

Aeroports de Paris designed the Pudong passenger terminal. With its sweeping white roof, which is supposed to resemble the wings of a seagull, this was supposed to be a proud statement of the achievements of the mainland's commercial centre.

Residents of the city seem to have a sentimental attachment to Hongqiao, however, and that is hampering Pudong's development. Perhaps that is because Hongqiao happens to be a lot closer to the city centre.

Even the deep discounts on fares for flights using Pudong have failed to convince reluctant travellers to make the trip out to the eastern suburbs to catch a plane. The nearly 200 yuan (about HK$189) taxi fare, not to mention the lost snoozing time, is often more than enough to offset any discount on an air ticket.

Some travellers actually use the new airport because they plan to stay or work in Pudong. Often to their surprise, they discover that the old Hongqiao airport is actually closer to Lujiazui - the commercial heart of Pudong - than the new Pudong airport.

Pudong is a rather large area, and the airport is at its eastern corner, about as far as you can go without getting your feet wet from the waters at the mouth of the mighty Yangtze River.

It is more than 40 kilometres from the city centre and a lot farther from the city's western districts. Add to that the usual time stuck in Shanghai traffic and it can be one painful trek. Despite the drawbacks, city officials say 6.89 million travellers used the Pudong airport last year. More than 13.76 million went through Hongqiao.

One of the more effective methods of improving utilisation, and a method that is applied liberally on the mainland, is to force people to go there. This could be seen as the modern-day equivalent of being sent down to the countryside.

Fly off on a business trip to North America from Shanghai and you will use Pudong airport. The same applies for a holiday to one of the scenic cities of China's industrial northeast.

If you planned to head for Beijing, however, you would have a choice. Forcing senior Beijing officials to use Pudong would improve air-traffic statistics but might not be politically correct.

City officials initially had billed Pudong as a replacement for Hongqiao but that plan has run into political obstacles. Officials now like to talk of Shanghai being in the metropolitan big league with New York, London or Tokyo -  and worthy of more than one airport.

Airline officials grumble this raises costs and complicates planning while passengers lament the need to transfer from one airport to the other for connecting flights. Taxi drivers, however, see things differently thanks to the hefty fares they can put in their pockets.

The issue might be resolved in the coming years once the much anticipated magnetic levitation train - or maglev as it is fondly known - is put into service. The train, which will be pulled by powerful magnets at a speed of 420km/h, will make the trip in less than 10 minutes, assuming the technology works in its first commercial application. Even with the maglev, however, passengers will have to drag their bags to a waiting taxi or bus or on to the subway, since the terminal will still be in Pudong, albeit much closer to the centre of town.

Armed with the advice of its consultants, Shanghai will be tackling these problems head on in the months ahead. The outsiders' prescription may even prove to be just the political cover the Government needs for the difficult decisions like the fate of Hongqiao airport. But at least it is reassuring to know that for the moment at least, Shanghai's residents can still find a quiet refuge from the din at their sleek, if costly, new airport.

Graphic: shan21gbz



What Pudong airport needs most of all is a lot more noise