New | China's airports struggle to keep up with air travel boom

When Mangshi opened its airport two decades ago, the small tropical city on China's border with Myanmar was served by few airlines. China's recent travel boom has changed that - seven carriers brought in more than 1 million visitors last year.

"We had a hard time attracting airlines in the early days," Li Ping, deputy chief of the airport's expansion steering committee, said. "Now we are struggling to accommodate flights."

Mangshi is one of more than 60 inland airports under expansion, with another 30 new regional airports being built. Government planners estimate China's airports will increase to 240 by 2020 from around 200 today.

Li Jiaxiang, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said this week the mainland would invest US$80 billion in aviation projects this year alone.

The aviation market is being lifted by rising business travel and a surge in outbound tourism fuelled by an increasingly wealthy middle class in coastal and inland cities. The number of leisure travellers going overseas for the first time topped 100 million last year, official data shows. Foreign travel is tipped to grow another 10 per cent this year as the United States, France and Australia ease visa policies.

That has prompted Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines to fly to New York, Paris and Sydney from Nanjing, Wuhan or Chengdu, or at least with a stopover in those second-tier cities.