Shanghai airports prepare for summer surge in flights, passengers

[Photo/China Eastern Airline]
Shanghai Airport Authority has unveiled plans for Shanghai Pudong and Hongqiao international airports, anticipating a projected total of 140,000 flights — 94,000 at Pudong and 46,000 at Hongqiao — over the next two months.
This translates to an average of 2,265 daily flights, representing an 8 percent increase from the previous year. Passenger traffic is expected to hit 22.2 million, with 13.89 million travelers passing through Pudong and 8.31 million via Hongqiao, averaging a staggering 360,000 passengers per day — a notable 16 percent surge compared to the preceding year.
Among the top destinations for travelers during this peak season are domestic hotspots like Beijing, Guangzhou in Guangdong province, Chengdu in Sichuan province, Sanya in Hainan province, and Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Internationally, popular destinations include Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.
In anticipation of the summer travel trends, Shanghai airports have been working closely with airlines to expand their route networks, introducing additional domestic services to destinations such as Altay in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Dunhuang in Gansu province, and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia autonomous region. On the international front, new routes from Shanghai to Manchester in the United Kingdom and Marseille, France, have been launched, while flights to Barcelona in Spain and Kagoshima in Japan have been reinstated. Furthermore, frequencies on routes to major cities like London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Sydney, and Seoul have been increased to cater to the escalating demand, according to Shanghai Airport Authority.
Source: thepaper.cn