China airports seen as more popular than Taoyuan airport

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on September 29, 2006. It reports that according to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), airports in Shanghai and Beijing pose a greater threat to the Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport than the recently opened Bangkok International Airport.

According to the CAA, with the rapid economic growth in Asia over the past several years, many countries have built or expanded their airports to upgrade their competitive edge, which depends on hardware as well as geographic location.

According to the CAA, Bangkok, a linchpin of travel between Southeast Asia and Europe, is the center of a thriving air transport network. But the Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport is also a superb gateway in Asia to the west coast of the United States that is favorable to passenger and cargo traffic in Asia and the Pacific. This makes its competitive correlation with Bangkok airport lower.

More importantly, the sources of passengers and cargo of the two airports are different. Therefore, the impact of the new Bangkok airport on Taiwan will be limited.

However, the CAA is worried about the threat that Beijing Capital International Airport and Shanghai Pudong Airport could pose to the Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport.

For example, statistics show that the cargo volume of the Taoyuan airport was 1.71 million tons in 2005, up a modest 0.3 percent from 2004, ranking 13th in the world. In that same year, Shanghai Pudong Airport grew by 13.7 percent, ranking 8th in the world.

Furthermore, passengers using the Taoyuan airport number 21.7 million in 2005. Although the number represents an 8.1-percent increase from 2004, it did not rank among the world's top 30 airports. In fact, it ranked only 10th among the 131 airports in the Asia-Pacific region.

In comparison, passengers using Beijing Capital International Airport grew by 17.5 percent in 2005 from 2004, ranking 14th in the world.