中国：37.5亿美刀，铺平空路

This summer, an estimated 6.4 million people are expected to arrive in Beijing for the Olympic Games. The Chinese government has spent the last several years investing in airport expansion, restricting flights, and negotiating with the military to ensure tourists will not start their trip with flight delays and cancellations.

But it hasn't been an easy task. Beijing Capital International Airport has been bursting at the seams, barely able to keep up with the explosion of air travel in China since the airline industry was deregulated in the 1980s. To win market share in China's fiercely competitive aviation industry (BusinessWeek.com 1/15/08), airlines have been overbooking flights to Beijing and Shanghai's congested airports, which has resulted in flight delays and cancellations. Last year, 86% of the flights into and out of Beijing's airport took off on time, putting it only in the middle of the pack compared with other major international airports, according to the airport.

Beijing is now unveiling what it hopes will be a multibillion-dollar solution to the problem. At midnight Feb. 29, Capital Airport's ultramodern Terminal 3 (BusinessWeek.com 2/27/08) officially opened for business, six months ahead of the 2008 Olympics. Construction on the $3.75 billion terminal, designed by British architect Norman Foster to evoke a red, orange, and yellow dragon, took a lightning-quick three years and nine months.

Second Airport in the Works

The world's largest airport terminal is one of a host of projects, including stadiums and office towers, Beijing has built for the Olympics to show off China's economic prowess. "Even if Beijing were not hosting the Olympics, our airport would still need to expand because we've had to restrict a lot of flights, and not just in the last year or two," says Zhang Zhizhong, president of Capital Airports Holding Company, parent company of the Beijing airport.

Although the original designs of the airport's Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 called for a maximum capacity of 35 million passengers per year, in 2007 they handled more than 53 million passengers, making Beijing's airport the ninth-busiest in the world. China's air traffic grew 16% last year as more businessmen flew to China to trade, and increasingly wealthier Chinese took flights for visits or vacations. Analysts say China's aviation industry could have grown even faster if it the infrastructure constraints had not caused bottlenecks. Terminal 3 will alleviate the problem by doubling Beijing airport's existing capacity to 76 million passengers per year. But that's only a temporary fix. Beijing is already planning to build a second airport by 2015 to keep up with the torrid pace of air traffic growth.

Nor is airport expansion limited to Beijing. The country's civil aviation regulator, General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), has ordered 16 other airports besides Beijing's to renovate their terminals, lengthen runways, and enlarge tarmacs before the Olympics. Some cities, such as Tianjin, Shanghai, and Qingdao, are upgrading their airports because they will also host Olympic events. Other cities will serve as backup airports to accommodate diverted flights in the event of bad weather in Beijing. "If you're looking at the delays, airports are doing what they can in terms of terminal infrastructure and runways," says Derek Sadubin, chief operating officer of the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, a Sydney-based consultancy. "But I think there's still a fair bit of work that needs to be done on the air traffic management side. That's an issue for the authorities involving the military to really address."

Working With the Military

While infrastructure bottlenecks and overbooking partially explain why flights are delayed or cancelled, there are other reasons beyond the CAAC's command.

The military controls most of China's airspace: Only 30% is available for civil aviation, forcing flights to take circuitous routes when flight corridors fill up. Also, the military sometimes closes off airspace to conduct military drills, delaying or canceling civilian flights crossing through southern China, particularly in areas near Taiwan. "The airspace problem is more serious in Beijing. In the south, there are special reasons such as military maneuvers," says Lin Shiping, manager of Xiamen Airlines' Fuzhou branch operation center. "Different areas have different reasons."

The civil aviation regulator has been negotiating with the military to provide additional airspace for new routes before the Olympics. As part of the expansion of the Beijing airport, authorities have eliminated the restricted military flight corridors around Beijing and set up a joint civil and military air control region in the Chinese capital. "The military has been making more concessions as the economy develops. But our industry has to yell at the top of our lungs. The people need to complain," says Wang Jian, secretary general of the China Civil Airports Assn. "Then the government will pay attention to this problem and put pressure on the military to make more concessions."

Sometimes flights are delayed simply because of the weather. During the severe snowstorms (BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/08) this winter, hundreds of flights across China were canceled and thousands delayed. In the summer, thunderstorms or lightning may also cause flight delays. Last September, Hwa Wu, a 28-year-old public relations executive, was scheduled to fly from Chengdu, Sichuan province to Beijing at 7 p.m. on Air China flight 4111. Due to heavy thunderstorms in Beijing, her flight did not take off until well past midnight. "Most of the time when you're at the airport and they tell you there's a delay, it's due to weather," she says. "That's understandable for most passengers. Most passengers would really get annoyed if the flight is always delayed due to mismanagement of the crew or the airport."

No More Overbooking

While China's civil aviation regulator cannot control the weather or the military, it is doing everything in its power to ensure flights run on time during the Olympics. Shortly after becoming acting head of the CAAC in January, Li Jiaxiang imposed harsh measures and stiff penalties, such as suspending flights, on airlines with punctuality problems. Beijing airport will cap flights at 1,350 a day this summer and fall. (Prior to the opening of the third terminal, Terminals 1 and 2 were handling about 1,300 to 1,400 flights a day before the CAAC stepped in last fall and capped the number at 1,000.)

Airlines will be banned from selling more tickets than they have seats on domestic flights from July to September. The 20 airlines with the worst punctuality records will have their tardy flight routes suspended for the quarter. China currently has 22 airlines. Says H.C. Kwok, China country manager for Continental Airlines (CAL), "China's government is trying their very best, trying to make sure that everything is smooth. We do hope that happens."