The recent fervor in airport construction in the Yangtze River Delta region has aroused concern among industry officials who warn such hasty construction might lead to an unnecessary waste of industrial resources.

"On average, there are eight airports within every 100,000 square kilometers in the delta region. This outnumbers the United States where only six such facilities could be found within the same size of land," said Li Guoqiang, director of the planning department with the east branch of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

"That is to say, East China, with the Yangtze River Delta region at the core, would probably in the future become one of the places in the world where airports are distributed in the highest density."

According to an industry survey, by the end of the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-2005), the number of civil-used airports in East China is supposed to hit 36, most of them in the Yangtze River Delta region. They will further increase to 48 by the end of 2020, or one within reach of every 400 kilometers.

In fact, some of the airports which were built under an irrational gusto and without careful preparatory studies in cities across the delta region have already begun to suffer huge financial losses because of low passenger flow and flight numbers.

So far, at least three airports in East China were forced to shut down due to insufficient air services. Others have been struggling to break even.

Industry officials agree that the extremely-high investment involved in airport construction might lead to most of the failures in their operations in the region.

While they are obviously different from other projects, it is not news that hundreds of millions of yuan (8.3 yuan=US$1) is devoured in the construction of a single airport. From the very beginning, this deficit somewhat shadows the prospect to making profit out of a business, even in a comparatively long run.

What is worse, the rapidly developing land traffic between Shanghai and its neighboring provinces in the delta region over recent years have also dealt a further blow to the already serious situation.

With more newly-built expressways being put into operation and expansion of some existing ones, travel within the delta region has become very convenient and fast nowadays. This has enabled people in more neighboring cities to get to Shanghai in just a few hours' drive.

While admitting the unreasonable distribution of airport resources in the Yangtze River Delta region, industry officials, however, said it is far from "irrevocable."

"Through reshuffling the existing industrial resources in the whole region -- for instance, transferring some civil-used airports in costal cities in Zhejiang Province to facilities specifically catering to freight transportation -- the unhealthy struggle for passengers among some small-sized airports and their bigger counterparts could be solved to some extent," said an industry official from Zhejiang.

The official said Shanghai's airports, backing on their prime strategic location as well as the city's rapid development, should spare no effort building themselves into both domestic and international aviation hubs. In contrast, some middle- and small-sized airports in other parts of the delta region had better position themselves differently, for example, as regional air hubs or specialty ones.

Industry experts agreed that the suggestion might be quite pragmatic if considering the fact that the two Shanghai airports are now operated almost under full load.

(eastday.com January 3, 2004)