Ready for Takeoff China’s Advancing Aerospace Industry(16)

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Factors Other Than GDP Growth
Wang and Jin (2007) assess major routes in China, using CAAC 2005 data. Between 1980 and 2005, the number of airports in China almost doubled, from 77 to 142. Annual passenger traffic grew from 3.4 mil-lion to 138.2 million passengers, or from 3.96 billion RPK to 204.5 billion RPK. In 2002, 62 percent of China’s population was within 100 km of an airport, and 75 percent of China’s GDP was generated within 100 km of an airport. In general, eastern China was better cov-ered percentagewise than western China, while central China lagged behind both. The bulk of Chinese domestic routes are between 400 and 2,000 km in length, with concentrations around 600 km and 1,100 km, driven primarily by the concentration of air traffic in the Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou regional triangle. See Figure 2.9.
Jin et al. (2004) and Wang and Jin (2007) describe historical domestic flight patterns in China. The following key insights are found in both:
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The bulk of domestic passenger routes are in the range of 400 to 2,000 km.

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50 percent of the total domestic travel is in a triangle connect-ing the greater metropolitan regions of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

 

2,500,000
NOTE:.Each.line.represents.a.route.with.at.least.100,000.passenger.trips. SOURCE:.Wang.and.Jin,.2007..Used.with.permission.
RAND.MG1100-2.9
The concentration of relatively shorter routes (400 to 2,000 km)
would normally suggest greater demand for regional jets, which typi-cally have shorter ranges. However, on a per-seat basis, regional jets are more expensive to operate than larger airliners. If there is suffi-cient passenger traffic to fill the seats, large commercial aircraft are more cost-effective. That fact, combined with the extreme concentra-tion of passenger traffic in three metropolitan regions and the limited numbers of gates and departure/landing slots, drives the calculus back toward fewer larger airplanes. It might be thought that the Chinese government’s focus on infrastructure projects and its ability to overrule red tape means that many new airports will be built, expanding the number of available landing slots. However, bureaucratic factors con-tinue to complicate the expansion of airport infrastructure in China (Perrett, 2010a).
Another important issue is competition from rail and automotive transport. Traditional rail transport (less than 100 mph), in contrast to high-speed rail, is more cost-effective than air or automotive transport. India’s extensive rail system helps explain why 98 percent of India’s population has never flown (“Flight to Value,” 2009). As the standard of living rises, however, the time cost of travel starts to outweigh the economic-cost advantage. This does not necessarily make rail uncom-petitive with air travel, but it requires investments in high-speed rail, which in turn requires higher population densities for economic viabil-ity. For example, in Japan, high-speed rail competes directly with air travel, but in the United States, where the population is much less con-centrated, high-speed rail is cost-effective only in certain areas (e.g., the Boston-New York City-Washington corridor). Given that China’s pop-ulation is highly concentrated and its governance structure is inclined toward funding major infrastructure projects, the development of high-speed rail that is competitive with domestic air travel, at least on shorter routes, seems likely (Perret, 2010a).
　
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