China accelerates investment in “smart” cargo airports

October 1st 2023

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Opened in July last year, it is Asia’s first and the world’s fourth dedicated cargo airport. Read More » In the last two months, China’s Ezhou Huahu Airport has marked two important milestones in its development.

In August, it welcomed its first international customer when Etihad Cargo operated its inaugural cargo flight, with a777-200 freighter, from its home hub in Abu Dhabi to Ezhou Huahu.

A few weeks later, Chinese cargo operator, SF Airlines, fully relocated its sorting centre to the facility, designating the airport as its primary national hub for transfers of freight from across China that will be received, sorted and subsequently dispatched to their destinations.

Located in Hubei province, the airport is planning to open 10 international cargo routes and 50 domestic routes by 2025 with an annual cargo and mail throughput of 2.45 million tonnes.

Etihad Cargo’s commitment to Ezhou Huahu follows the news it has expanded its reciprocal block space agreement with SF Airlines to increase cargo capacity from China to overseas destinations via Abu Dhabi. Etihad Cargo Head of Revenue Management, Fleet and Network, Leonard Rodrigues, said: “Offering connectivity to China’s five national level city clusters via railway, waterway, expressway and air transportation infrastructure, Ezhou Huahu Airport is the region’s first dedicated professional cargo airport. Introduction of a weekly Abu Dhabi-Ezhou freighter network opens interline opportunities with Etihad Cargo’s partner, SF Airlines, and will facilitate its reach into the Chinese market, a key region for the airline and Etihad Cargo’s customers and partners.”

The state-of-the-art facilities and smart technology available at the airport represent the future of air cargo, said Rodrigues. Etihad Cargo is fully committed to achieving mutual growth and strengthening ties between the UAE and China, building on the success of this new route, he said.

The Doha-headquartered carrier is not the only Gulf cargo airline to increase capacity into China. Emirates SkyCargo recently has added four freighter flights a week to serve China, with six direct cargo flights to Shanghai, two to Beijing and four to Guangzhou, adding more than 400 tonnes of cargo capacity into and from the country.

The SF transfer centre at Ezhou Huahu Airport has seven sorting lines that span 210 kilometers in length when fully extended. With an operating speed of 70 kilometers per hour, it can handle a staggering peak volume of 500,000 items every 60 minutes.

SF Airlines is steadily increasing its domestic cargo flights at the airport. Starting with six flights, building to 13 and now at 30 flights, the network includes 42 domestic cargo routes. The rapid growth has propelled the airport’s overall passenger and cargo flight count past the 100 mark, solidifying its position as a thriving cargo hub.

Mainland airlines are expanding cargo capacity. Beijing-based Air China Cargo will accept a minimum of 12 more wide-body freighters by year-end 2025, potentially doubling its fleet. It expects to fly its first A330-200P2F by December and become the first Chinese operator of the type. In addition, it intends to send all eight of the A330-200 passenger aircraft it will acquire to its joint venture MRO shop, Ameco, for conversion to freighters.

Equipped with a 23,000 square meters cargo centre, a freight transit center of nearly 700,000 square meters, 124 parking stands and two runways, the airport is planned to improve the transport efficiency of air freight and promote China’s opening up.

It is benchmarked against Memphis International Airport in the U.S., one of the world’s busiest cargo airports and home to Fedex.

SF Airlines is owned by SF Express, China’s leading logistics service provider. It is a 46% investor in Hubei International Logistics Airport Co. Ltd, the operator of Ezhou Huahu Airport.

The airport’s developers applied for more than 70 patents and copyrights for new technology at Ezhou, including 5G, Big Data, cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), to build a safer, greener and smarter airport precinct. An example is the more than 50,000 sensors installed beneath the runways to capture vibration wave forms generated by aircraft taxiing and also to monitor runway incursions.

The intelligent cargo sorting system has enhanced work efficiency in the logistics transfer center. The transfer centre’s production capacity stands at 280,000 parcels an hour short-term, but could reach 1.16 million pieces every hour longer term.

Despite concerns about China’s slowing economy, there is plenty of evidence of confidence in the Mainland air cargo sector. The country’s third largest cargo airport, Shenzhen Bao’an International, is building more cargo terminals for faster processing of e-commerce air freight.

It handled 776,000 tons of international air freight in 2022, a near 20% increase annually for the third consecutive year. It typically outperforms other Chinese airports in attracting international traffic and ranks in the top 20 airports globally for cargo volumes.

Twenty eight airlines operate freighters into the airport, in a city that borders Hong Kong.

Bao’ an’s cross border e-commerce volumes doubled in the first seven months of this year, handling 93,000 tonnes of cross-border e-commerce traffic from January to July, up 101% year-on-year.

Since the start of the year, five new international freighter routes have been operating from the airport and the frequency of five existing services has been increased. Seven of these flights are cross-border e-commerce routes: Shenzhen to Paris, Liege, Sao Paulo, London, Davao, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

The airport has attracted 35 international and regional freighter routes to its air freight network with electronic products accounting for the transport of approximately 40% of Shenzhen’s international e-commerce goods.