At present, the supporting role of air cargo is further highlighted, and air cargo has recovered to a high level, among which international cargo has achieved positive growth.
Compared with air passenger transport, which is related to the travel of millions of people, air cargo is very "low-key". But in fact, air freight is also closely related to people's daily life, from the highly time-sensitive "SF Air Freight" to the import of various foreign goods.
On July 17, at the commissioning ceremony held in the terminal hall of Hubei Ezhou Huahu Airport (hereinafter referred to as "Huahu Airport"), the Central and Southern Regional Administration of Civil Aviation issued an airport use license to Hubei International Logistics Airport Co., Ltd. .
At 11:35, with a SF Airlines all-cargo plane carrying express mail from Ezhou to Shenzhen taking off, Ezhou Huahu, the first professional cargo hub airport in Asia and the fourth in the world, was officially put into operation.
"The completion and operation of Huahu Airport presents a modern, high-quality large-scale air cargo hub to the world, and provides an 'Ezhou plan' for the construction of civil aviation quality projects. We must take this as a new starting point to ensure the continuous, stable and safe operation of the airport; Focus on improving competitiveness, building a high-quality international air cargo hub, and helping economic and social development." Wan Xiangdong, chief pilot of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at the commissioning ceremony.
What are the new functions of "airport to the sea"
Wilson analyst Xu Hong told reporters: "Because of historical and transportation reasons, looking at the world, often those areas that are closer to coastal cities and coastal central cities have more significant economic development advantages."
Under this circumstance, how can inland cities become the frontiers of opening up? What methods can be used to accelerate the construction of transportation layout? For cities with obvious location advantages, how to carry out a global and systematic development of local economic and social development through the construction of transportation hubs Sexual, reshaping change?
For these problems, Huahu Airport gave its own "problem-solving ideas".
The reporter learned that Huahu Airport is generally positioned as a cargo hub airport. In the first phase of freight, two routes from Ezhou to Shenzhen and Shanghai will be opened. After the international freight function is fully opened, international freight routes such as Osaka and Frankfurt will be opened to create a convenient air channel.
Among them, the peak transportation period of cargo flights will be concentrated from 11:00 pm to 4:00 am the next day. During the busiest period, more than 40 aircraft are expected to swarm in sequence every hour. It is estimated that by 2025, Huahu Airport will open about 10 international cargo routes and 50 domestic routes, and the cargo and mail throughput will reach 2.45 million tons, forming an international air cargo hub that radiates across the country and reaches the world.
According to the plan, Huahu Airport will have a passenger throughput of 1.5 million passengers and a cargo and mail throughput of 3.3 million tons in 2030; a third runway will be built on the east side of the east runway in 2050 to meet the annual passenger throughput of 20 million passengers and cargo and mail throughput. 9.08 million tons and 270,000 aircraft takeoffs and landings.
At present, the transfer center of Huahu Airport, which has attracted much attention, is still under construction and is expected to be fully put into use in 2023. The construction area of the first phase is about 700,000 square meters, which is larger than the total area of the three terminals T1, T2 and T3 of Tianhe Airport; the long-term planning is about 1.2 million square meters.
"This will be the most significant landmark in Huahu Airport, and it will be the first air cargo hub in China. The general passenger airport is dominated by check-in and waiting halls, while the professional cargo airport is dominated by transshipment centers. The super aviation transshipment center will help Hubei to participate in the global logistics system." The relevant person in charge of Ezhou Huahu Airport said.
According to reports, the transfer center will set up 7 sorting lines, and the peak value of sorting goods per hour can reach 500,000, and the degree of automation is leading in the industry. Zhang Hao, project director of SF Group’s Hubei hub, introduced that in SF’s global business layout, the Huahu Airport Transit Center is the core of its aviation network. The goal is to build a global supply chain center, a national warehouse distribution center, and a high-end processing and distribution center.
It is worth noting that with the support of China Telecom's 5G customized network technology, Huahu Airport is the first in China to explore the large-scale use of AGV robots for automatic sorting of express delivery.
In view of the large connection, low latency and high data security requirements for air express transshipment, Huahu Airport uses lightweight UPF network elements and MEC equipment to locally forward data streams to avoid data detours; The delay is controlled to as low as 12 milliseconds, which is far better than the 25 milliseconds expected by the airport, ensuring that the AGV robot is quick in sorting and express delivery, and "no crash" in collaborative work.
With the official operation of Huahu Airport, its "cluster effect" is also emerging. Wang Wei, chairman of SF Holding, said that SF Airlines Logistics will take Huahu Airport as its hub and deploy four regional airports in four directions, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu, to build a "1+4" development model.
In addition, Huahu Airport multimodal transport relies on the three multimodal transport channels laid out by SF Express, and will open a number of multimodal transport lines including air-rail combined transport, air-rail combined transport, road-rail combined transport, and river-sea-rail combined transport.
"The air-public transport starts from Shenzhen Bao'an Airport. After being transported by air to Ezhou Huahu Airport, SF Express will complete the unloading and other procedures with the assistance of the airport company." Wang Wei said, "The air express will be transported by road to Ezhou Huahu Airport. After the lake airport is transported to the Nanchang sorting center, it will continue to be transported to the terminal distribution network by short road barges, and the 'last mile' distribution activities will be completed."
In Xu Hong's view, the smooth economic cycle is the key to building a new development pattern, and a modern transportation system and a modern logistics system are indispensable. Experts in the express delivery industry pointed out that the investment in Huahu Airport will further separate the timeliness of SF Express’s products from the industry average timeliness by more than 3 hours. This timeliness network is not only the domestic timeliness network, but also the core of serving global and supply chain products. Advantages; Huahu Airport will also form a nationwide express logistics cargo hub in central my country, reshaping the air cargo market structure.
Cargo has become an important driver of aviation recovery
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia, air passenger and cargo have been polarized. On the one hand, passenger flow is sparse and revenue is bleak. On the other hand, oil prices have risen and freight rates have risen. This year, some civil aviation practitioners even sighed that "the current level of difficulty has exceeded 2020." In this case, the supporting role of air cargo is further highlighted.
At the press conference held on July 12, Wu Shijie, deputy director of the Aviation Safety Office of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, introduced that the current air cargo has recovered to a high level, of which international cargo has achieved positive growth. In the first half of the year, the entire industry completed a total of 3.077 million tons of cargo and mail transportation, a year-on-year decrease of 17.9%, and recovery to 87.5% of the same period in 2019. In April, civil aviation cargo and mail traffic only recovered to 69.8% of the same period in 2019.
"In May and June, the month-on-month growth rate of the industry's cargo and mail transportation volume was 17.0% and 12.1% respectively, of which the month-on-month growth rate of international routes was 15.6% and 2.5% respectively. In June, the overall scale of civil aviation cargo and mail transportation has recovered to 89.7% of the same period in 2019, among which, the scale of international air cargo increased by 1.8% compared with the same period last year, and the market demand for civil aviation international cargo is still at a high level." Wu Shijie said.
The reporter learned that since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, passenger demand has shrunk, and airlines have begun to adopt passenger-to-cargo methods to provide belly capacity. While developing freight, it can also reduce idle passenger aircraft, improve utilization, and hedge the huge losses caused by passenger transport.
At present, there are two main modes of "passenger-to-cargo". One is to remove all or part of the cabin seats, change the cabin configuration, and carry cargo in both the belly and passenger cabins; Only the belly compartment can be used to carry cargo, or both the belly compartment and the passenger compartment can be loaded.
However, the number of passenger-to-cargo flights that have modified the cabin in China is not large. In addition, the latest implementation of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's "Cargo Cargo Transport in the Cabin (Second Edition)" stipulates that in order to improve the safety margin, it is not allowed to change the cabin structure. This model loads cargo on the floor of the cabin, so domestic airlines basically adopt the second mode when changing from passenger to cargo.
Data shows that in 2021, China Eastern Airlines will invest 15,300 passenger-to-cargo flights, and China Southern Airlines will invest 7,023 passenger-to-cargo flights. The latter mentioned in the business plan that it is necessary to seize the opportunities in the international freight market, improve the utilization rate of freight aircraft, do a good job in the international return market and belly hold operations, and continue to increase the scale of passenger-to-cargo flights.
In a recent interview with reporters, civil aviation expert Lin Zhijie said that if the civil aviation industry is to get out of the cold winter, the market opportunities are in freight and international, and how many can be seized. ,especially important."
In response to this problem, Chinese civil aviation practitioners are also constantly optimizing and advancing. Liang Nan, director of the Transportation Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said bluntly that it is necessary to change the previous policy orientation of supporting passenger transport and implement the development strategy of "paying equal attention to both passenger and cargo".
Liang Nan said that China's civil aviation industry needs to coordinate the "passenger and cargo relationship". At present and for a period of time in the future, the belly of passenger aircraft is still one of the most realistic options; last mile".
In addition, the Civil Aviation Administration of China is also studying and supporting intermodal transport such as "aviation + high-speed rail" and "aviation + China-Europe freight train", to enhance the value-added service capabilities of logistics facilities, and to increase the application and promotion of multimodal transport aviation container transportation equipment. Air-to-air intermodal transport depots and loading and unloading facilities.
"We need to realize the transformation from industry management to integrated governance. Adhere to the concept of system, give full play to the market mechanism and the policy synergy of various departments, promote the transformation of aviation logistics production mode from industrialization to socialization, and create a new social governance model of precise governance and multi-party cooperation. mode." Liang Nan said.
However, the demand for air cargo has soared under the epidemic, and airlines around the world are working overtime to deliver cargo, and there is even a situation of "supporting passengers with cargo". For Chinese airlines, the number of wide-body all-cargo aircraft is seriously insufficient, which has become the biggest shortcoming in the development of cargo business at this stage.
"2020 Civil Aviation Industry Development Statistical Bulletin" shows that by the end of 2020, there were 3,903 transport aircraft in the civil aviation industry at the end of the period, including 3,717 passenger aircraft and 186 cargo aircraft, and cargo aircraft accounted for less than 5%.
However, with the official operation of Huahu Airport, air cargo will continue to grow and develop. Huahu Airport will help build a "global 123 express cargo logistics circle" with one-day delivery in China, two-day delivery in neighboring countries, and three-day delivery in major cities around the world, adding another "fuel" to the overall recovery of the civil aviation industry.
This article comes from Logistics Times Weekly and does not represent the view of Yihangtong. If there is any infringement, please contact to delete it. The pictures used in the article are from the Internet.
