● Why did Tianfu Airport, which has been heavily criticized, become the second busiest airport in the country?

● How does Tianfu Airport drive the "common prosperity of five regions"?

● What role does Tianfu Airport play in the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle?

● Under the background of "One Belt One Road", how will Chengdu leverage Tianfu Airport to build an international hub?

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The meaning of travel: to see the sky, the earth, and oneself;

The meaning of flight: to see people, objects, and countries.

The long holiday ended.

With the alarm clock ringing early in the morning of May 6th, the last long holiday of the first half of 2024 officially rang the bell of its conclusion. Although there is the Dragon Boat Festival waiting, in the hearts of most people, the extra day of leisure compared to the weekend only means an extra half-day of sleep.

Chinese people who have been immersed in the concrete jungle for too long naturally won't miss this opportunity to "escape" from their ordinary lives. The notes of travel compose the main melody of 120 hours.

According to estimates from the Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the May Day holiday of 2024, a total of 295 million domestic trips were made, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.6%; total spending by domestic tourists reached 166.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%. Sichuan province welcomed 42.0758 million tourists, gradually approaching the level of 43 million in 2019.

Among them, the most eye-catching is Tianfu Airport, which surpassed Chongqing Jiangbei Airport last year and became the first in central and western China with a throughput of 44.79 million passengers. This May Day, what kind of performance will Tianfu Airport deliver?

▍Image source: Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

According to Jin Guan News, during the period from May 1st to 5th, the passenger throughput of the two airports in Chengdu's international aviation hub exceeded 1.2 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 10.0%. The number of domestic flights taking off and landing at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport was second only to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, making it the second busiest airport in the country!

Undoubtedly, it is the hottest destination in Sichuan during the May Day holiday.

Behind these impressive results are doubts from all directions and complaints from Chengdu locals. So why did Tianfu Airport choose Jianyang despite all the controversy?

This "game of flight chess" in Sichuan is much larger than one can imagine.

01.

The driving force for the "common prosperity of five regions"

Ostrovsky once wrote: "No matter how talented a person is, the collective is often smarter and more powerful than him."

This statement applies equally to regional development issues.

After the reform and opening up, due to the "siphon effect" of the economy in the southeast coastal regions, labor from across the country flocked to the coast, striving to become among the "first to get rich." However, Sichuan, whose population growth rate from the 1970s to the 1980s was lower than the national average, was obviously not spared from the fate of talent flowing southward to seek fortune.

Misfortunes never come singly.

In the 1990s, with the secession of Chongqing, another major city in Sichuan, and its establishment as a municipality directly under the central government, it led to a "shakeup" in Sichuan's industry.

Talents went south to seek fortune, and industries followed suit, moving eastward with Chongqing. Sichuan decided to concentrate its efforts on expanding the provincial capital and began exploring the "strong provincial capital" development model. After 20 years, Chengdu was cultivated into the leader among "new first-tier cities."

▍Image source: Chengdu Release

However, behind Chengdu's rapid rise is a fault in the economic gap.

In 2023, Chengdu's GDP exceeded the 2.2 trillion yuan mark, ranking seventh nationally, while Mianyang, the second-largest city in Sichuan after Chengdu, only accounted for one-fifth of Chengdu's GDP.

The concept of "the rich helping the poor" is quite challenging for Chengdu, which only accounts for 3% of Sichuan's area.

The power of one city is inferior to that of several cities.

As a result, the "Chengdu Plain Economic Zone" was born.

▍Image source: Chengdu Development and Reform

The Second Plenary Session of the 12th Sichuan Provincial Party Committee clearly put forward the regional development strategy of "common prosperity of five regions," which is not only an implementation of the strategic deployment of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on "building a complementary and high-quality regional economic layout and territorial spatial system" but also an important measure to address the imbalance in development within Sichuan Province.

The "Chengdu Plain Economic Zone," with Chengdu as the core and connecting seven central cities in Sichuan such as Deyang and Mianyang, has been entrusted with the mission of building "the core growth pole of the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and the pioneer area for high-quality development in Sichuan Province."

In short, the "strong provincial capital" strategy has expanded from one city to eight cities. With the expansion of the radiation range, the ability to lead and drive will multiply.

The ideal is beautiful.

However, to shoulder the heavy responsibility of being a "pioneer area for high-quality development," in addition to the internal economic engine - Chengdu's drive, it is also necessary to introduce resources from the outside and establish a fulcrum to support regional economic coordination and development. Transportation hubs are crucial entry points.

Previously, the Chengdu Plain lacked corresponding conditions, especially in air transportation.

Before the operation of Tianfu Airport, the eight cities of Chengdu, Deyang, Mianyang, Meishan, Ziyang, Leshan, Ya'an, and Suining only had Chengdu Shuangliu Airport and Mianyang Nanjiao Airport to maintain air transportation.

▍Image source: Mianyang Airport

However, as the passenger flow at Shuangliu Airport gradually saturated and expanding the old airport was impractical, coupled with the gradually widening gap between the provincial capital and other cities, it was imperative to build a new airport that balances passenger flow operations and regional economic radiation.

Jianyang, the center of ChengmeiZi, took on this role.

On the surface, Jianyang's Lujia Town has ample space and can avoid airspace conflicts, making it easy to build another 4F airport with sufficient capacity.

Digging deeper, this is Sichuan's strategy of using Chengdu Jianyang as a fulcrum to radiate cities like Ziyang and Meishan, unblock air traffic congestion in the Chengdu Plain, drive the economy through transportation, and use the air transportation hub as a growth pole to drive the development of the Chengdu Plain. With the central region rising, it will radiate and drive the "common prosperity of five regions."

▍Image source: Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

In other words, from the moment Tianfu Airport's site selection in Jianyang Lujia was determined on June 20, 2013, Sichuan began laying out the "common prosperity of five regions" strategy for 10 years!

The foresight has brought economic returns.

In 2023, Jianyang's GDP exceeded the 50 billion yuan mark, with a growth rate of 7.19%, higher than the province's 6% figure. Moreover, in the "2023 CCID Top 100 Counties List," Jianyang ranked 87th nationwide, with a six-place increase!

Looking at Meishan, its economic growth in the first quarter of 2024 was 9.1%, far higher than the province's 6.1% growth rate. Last year, Meishan also maintained a growth rate of 6.2%, stable above the province's 6% passing line.

With the operation of routes such as the Chengdu East-Chengdu East Ring Line and the Chengdu-Zigong-Yibin High-Speed Railway, Tianfu Airport will not only connect cities like Meishan and Ziyang but also drive the economic zone in southern Sichuan, south of the plain, realizing rapid connectivity between the Chengdu Plain Economic Zone and the Southern Sichuan Economic Zone. This will inject new momentum into the "common prosperity of five regions" and promote high-quality integrated development of the urban agglomeration in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Therefore, Tianfu Airport's site selection in Jianyang is not "choosing a distant place to settle" but rather "choosing a good place to settle" based on the development strategy of the "common prosperity of five regions."

02.

The open window of the dual-city economic circle

The path to development lies to the east.

China's economy has three poles of growth. To the east is the "Yangtze River Delta," whose economy has surpassed the 30 trillion yuan mark; to the south is the "Pearl River Delta," adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao; to the north is the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei" region, with the capital as its core; and to the west is the "Chengdu-Chongqing Dual-City Economic Circle," nurtured by Chengdu and Chongqing.

On January 3, 2020, the Sixth Meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Commission proposed: "Promote the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Dual-City Economic Circle and form an important growth pole for high-quality development in the west."

▍Image source: Chengdu Development and Reform

Looking back in time, from the "economic zone" proposed in the "Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone Regional Plan" approved by the State Council and issued by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2011, to the "urban agglomeration" used to define Chengdu-Chongqing in the "Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration Development Plan" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2016, and finally to the current "dual-city economic circle," the change in the national strategic "terminology" regarding the Chengdu-Chongqing region indicates the central government's expectations for its development and signifies that the Chengdu-Chongqing Dual-City Economic Circle has risen to a strategic status comparable to the "Yangtze River Delta," "Pearl River Delta," and "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei," making it the undisputed "fourth pole" to fill the growth gap in western China!

However, the elevation of strategic positioning cannot make up for the lack of hard conditions and the legacy of acquired "diseases." The former includes the obstruction of airspace transportation, while the latter refers to the "sickness" of the "middle collapse."

Looking at the "first, second, and third poles," the "Yangtze River Delta" leads the way with over 20 airports, while the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei" and "Pearl River Delta" are gradually moving towards the goal of "10." In contrast, although there are more than ten airports officially in operation within the Chengdu-Chongqing Dual-City Economic Circle, only Chongqing Jiangbei, Chengdu Shuangliu, and Chengdu Tianfu airports form a "tripartite confrontation" on the main development axis, supporting the core airspace of the dual cities.

▍Image source: Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

Therefore, there is an urgent need for an airport between the two cities, which must not only radiate most of the main cities and districts but also "echo" Chongqing Jiangbei Airport and develop synergistically. From the airspace level, it aims to create a strategic highland for inland areas to open up to the outside world and become a "bridge in the sky" connecting the central and western regions to the world. Jianyang, to the east of Chengdu, is an excellent choice; the same applies to Bishan, where Chongqing's under-construction Zhengxing Airport is located.

However, this is only an "appetizer."

In October 2021, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Outline of the Construction Plan for the Chengdu-Chongqing Dual-City Economic Circle," which clearly instructed to "jointly build a world-class airport cluster." In 2022, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing World-Class Airport Cluster," which further proposed the phased goals for building the airport cluster and made deployments from five aspects: dual-core leadership, collaborative linkage, joint construction and sharing, innovation-driven development, and win-win cooperation.

By 2025, the Chengdu-Chongqing world-class airport cluster will take shape.

By 2035, a Chengdu-Chongqing world-class airport cluster led by dual cores, convenient and accessible, safe and reliable, intelligent and advanced, green and intensive, and collaborative and efficient will be fully established.

▍Image source: Weichengdu

It can be seen that both Tianfu Airport and Zhengxing Airport are the "leaders" in the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing world-class airport cluster. Their core role is to build a global route network with four airports as the main axis, efficiently connecting major international cities. This is a reserve of international resources. They will promote practical cooperation between Chengdu and Chongqing in international routes, transfer connections, and other areas, jointly enhancing the service level and competitiveness of the airport cluster's international routes. This is preparation for business cooperation. With a focus