moondog

First of all, I don't think inter-airport transfers are especially relevant. Bear in mind that PEK is the second busiest airport in the world; we have flights to many , many destinations.

The issue is that there aren't any more daytime landing slots, and those flights tend to be full.

The city planning people have known that additional airport(s) were going to be required for ~10 years. There had been talk about converting a military airport or two to accommodate commercial service; Nanyuan, in particular, received a lot of attention because KN already uses it, but the road infrastructure in that area is dreadful.

Until this recent news broke, my money was on a site (near Epoch City) between BJ and Tianjin along the train route because that would have served both markets and supported BJ's southward development ambitions.

Just to provide a bit of history, apart from downtown, the NW part of BJ (Haidian) was traditionally considered the most desirable based on its positive fengshui (there is more water up there and the winds tend to come from that direction); that's why most of the universities are up there.

Meanwhile, Chaoyang became desirable during the 1980s because it was opened to foreign investment first (much like Jing'an in Shanghai).

The south, by contrast, was largely ignored and looked down upon.

Well, the times are a changin'. Build a $X billion HSR project with its terminus at South Stn and the largest airport in the world, and you can bet your bottom dollar that massive development will follow. As of now, there is minimal subway coverage in the south, but the worker bees are doing their best to change that:

http://www.beijing-travels.com/beiji...way/plans.html

Even though both the existing airport and the proposed airport are both technically in Beijing, I think it's conceptually easier to think of them as being on opposite ends of an enormous metropolis, similar to SZX/CAN or BWI/IAD.

I'm sorry for the long winded post, but I find this stuff fascinating. What's more, I've been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to witness this city/country transform from abject poverty into the land of iPhones and Ferraris during the course of the past 1.5 decades. While I realize that the bubble could burst at any time, thus far, things have pretty much adhered to the "5 Year Plans" to a tee (that failed Maglev experiment in SH, notwithstanding).

Shimon

In a perfect world people would connect out of the same airport. The sad thing is airlines try to exploit the pricing and travellers are not willing to always pay the extra to connect in the same airport meaning you are going to need a good way to connect the two airports. Disagree? How many passengers heading to Hong Kong fly to Shenzhen?

moondog

Yes, I do. PEK is an O&D airport (for 99% of pax) and I expect the new airport will fall into the same mold. This is a little different from the Shanghai case, in which PVG handles most international flights and SHA is mostly domestic, but not that much different because there aren't a whole lot of inter-airport transfers in Shanghai (i.e. most places you'd want to transfer to are accessible via NRT or ICN).

In the case of Beijing, the proposed airport is far enough away from PEK that few people would dream connecting between the two, but that doesn't matter because both airports will serve the same destinations. For the most part, the "hub" concept doesn't apply in either case; no sane person would connect in Beijing (or Shanghai) in the absence of other options.

Shimon

Shenzhen is a better case example. SHA has too little flights to be of competition to PVG for connections.

Shenzhen runs connections to Hong Kong airport. People fly into SZX then connect to an international flight from Hong Kong. Or vice-versa.

People still keep on doing it because they want to avoid the flying into Hong Kong tax.

The business decisions of the airlines to maximize profit could cause a similar thing in Beijing. Don't want to spend 2 hours transiting through Beijing? Fine pay us an extra 300 rmb and we will let you connect in the same airport. Airline bosses are probably already planning their pricing structure to advantage of two MAJOR airports in Beijing.

Maybe I am pessimistic because I see the numbers who fly to SZX just to get to HKG. But I don't think I can trust the airlines not to take advantage of this.

moondog

As you must know, one of the main reasons HK is more expensive is because its government charges higher taxes. Furthermore, SZX has very few international flights (much like SHA); if it were possible to fly from SZX to LAX, LHR, SYD, JNB, etc, you'd see a lot less of the Shenzhen Shuffle.

Any way you slice it, more airports means more supply and more competition.

Shimon

MORE competition in between the airports. MORE opportunity for the the airlines to profit off of convenience. Convenience is the biggest factor in getting a good price or not.

Taxes and fees flying from Shanghai to Shenzhen are 200rmb (more if over 800KM). Shanghai to Hong Kong are $355HKD.

Cheapest ticket to Shenzhen is ~400 rmb. Cheapest ticket to Hong Kong is around 700 rmb. Cheapest ticket to Shenzhen is plentiful. To Hong Kong is not so.

moondog

What are you talking about? Both Juneyao and Spring sell PVG-HKG for y100 (plus a boatload of taxes/fees) on a daily basis. Your HKG/SZX comparison is meaningless.

Shimon

I'm talking about taxes and fees. My numbers are correct.

I excluded the LCC from the lowest as people are unlikely to use them to connect to another flight.

moondog

Point taken. But, I fail to see why this is an issue at all. Those HK people expect us to pay our share of the $28 billion they spent to build their airport.

I fail to see how this is relevant to the instant case.

Why would you exclude them? Let's say I want to fly from Shanghai to a secondary market in Australia. My choices are: 1) KA/CX on one ticket; 2) get myself to HK, and proceed onward from there.

In the case of #2, why would I exclude Spring/Juneyao from my list of PVG-HKG options?

percysmith

Looks like CX/KA will keep old PEK https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-for-dominance？CX/KA needs to be able to chuck PEK-HKG passengers onto CA flights and vice versa.

moa999

And SkyTeam, anchored by MU/CZ will move to the new Beijing South.

What does this mean for oneworld airlines?

Certainly would think QF would want to follow MU., And likely AA similar with CZ

eponymous_coward

Your link 404s for me.

Let's try this:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-for-dominance

ajeleonard

No mention of what will happen to Hainan which has a pretty big operation at PEK

My guess is airlines will only move if they're forced to, and the only ones forced to initially will be Skyteam in order to make the new airport a hub

Longer term one of China Southern or China Eastern will move to Oneworld and at that point the rest of the alliance will also be forced to move