Pre-pandemic era, in the year 2017 , IATA (International Air Transport Association) had forecasted that by 2024, China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest passenger market, and in 2035, China will be a market of 1.3 billion passengers. Things are not going as per the Forecast though , aviation struggles despite global aspirations !
However, China says, Favorable policies by the government of China has seen major International aviation Players have acknowledged the Chinese Aviation industry, and sent positive signals for deeper cooperation with their Chinese counterparts at different occasions including events like Hunan International General Aviation Industry Expo in central China's Hunan Province.
Now, Chinese authorities have issued a plan on the development of the country's civil aviation industry during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).
By the end of 2025, China will have over 270 civil transport airports, which will handle 17 million takeoffs and landings a year, according to the plan released by Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
The civil aviation sector will handle 930 million passenger trips and 9.5 million tonnes of cargo and parcels annually by 2025.
According to the plan, countries and regions linked to China via flight routes will exceed 70 by 2025. More than 50 of them will be partners under the Belt and Road Initiative.
China's civil aviation sector operated safely during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), with total flight hours hitting 52.7 million, according to CAAC officials.
By the end of 2020, China had a total of 241 certified transport airports, covering 91.7 percent of prefecture-level cities, the officials said.
China's general aviation industry has also seen stable development over the past five years from 2015 to 2020, with official data showed that the average annual growth of business volume was around 13.7 percent.
China is also putting all efforts to mainstream it's Aerospace industry by promoting COMAC ( Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China ) ,which is developing a competitor to Narrow body segment of Airbus A320 family & Boeing's 737 Max.
Within China, COMAC's product C919 has already received it's orders from airlines like China Eastern Airlines , that will purchase five aircrafts as per an agreement from last year.
It will be interesting to see , whether China's projected plans meet the targets amid a situation, when all of the travel and aviation industry is struggling under the grip of Pandemic.
