Chinese Aviation Gambits - The Taklamakan Tango
China can build a new air silk road to Europe through an Ürümqi aviation hub, supporting investments in Central Asia & growth in China’s own interior cities
Fly from Hong Kong to London and there is a good chance that you will take a route over the mighty Taklamakan desert. Essentially a giant dust bowl, the desert is surrounded by mountains – the Tian Shan to the north, the Pamir to the west and the Kunlun to the south which all make sure that when dust blows in it stays there. As a result the desert is characterised by impressive dunes (pictured above).
The region is also famous for it’s lost ancient cities like Niya and it’s trading posts like Kashgar, which lead on to Tashkent, Samarkand and the Jaxartes River. Traders who made the arduous silk road journey to the west would skirt the boundary between desert and mountain, stopping at the occasional oasis town to refresh and prepare for the next leg.
In the late 19th century, archaeologists descended on the lost cities and monasteries and, depending on your view of the world, they either looted or recovered spectacular ancient Buddhist art, treasures and manuscripts. The author Peter Hopkirk told their story in his excellent 1980 book “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road”, which I would recommend to anyone interested in real-life adventure and history.
The middle east is famous for it’s desert-based airlines – Emirates, Qatar Airways and the rest – and it’s one-humped Arabian camels. But it is the Taklamakan, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush that is the truly exotic orient – the home of the two-humped Bactrian camel.
It is easy to imagine flying carpets waiting to be found somewhere in the lost temples, but sadly there are in fact no major air carriers based there. However there may be a great opportunity for China to build a new aviation hub at regional capital Ürümqi offering connectivity into Central Asia and Europe from China’s own interior cities.
Such an airline would help China progress it’s Belt & Road programme. I have written before about aviation opportunities for China in the Pacific (see article) and regarding the new maritime silk road to Africa (see article). Now in this third and final story I address the “belt” part of Belt & Road, the Silk Road Economic Belt covering Central Asia, the Levant and Eastern Europe.
Chinese aviation is primed for growth
Between 2015 and 2019, China was the fastest growing passenger market in the world, with an annual growth rate of 10.9% according to Amadeus, an IT company, who also reckon that the country will add more than 1.5 billion passengers to global aviation within the next 20 years. If these journeys materialise the analysts estimate they would support nearly $300 billion (£234m) in economic growth and up to seven million jobs.
In 2018, airline industry trade association IATA calculated that 7.5 million passengers arrived in China from Europe, 1.3 million from the middle east and 1.2 million from Africa. The problem for Chinese airlines is that much of this traffic is funnelled through the country’s three aviation hubs at Beijing (BJS), Shanghai (SHA) and Guangzhou (CAN). All of these are on the east coast, requiring passengers to interior Chinese mega cities with growing middle class populations like Changsha (CSX), Chengdu (CTU), Nanjing (NKG), Wuhan (WUH) and Guiyang (KWE) to back-track.
Air support for the New Eurasian Land Bridge
The New Eurasian Land Bridge is a key part of Belt & Road, linking China with Europe through the five “stans” of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In recent years these resource-rich countries have received more than $300 billion (£234 billion) of investment from China.
It is extremely likely that in the future these countries will need more regular air links to interior Chinese cities. Take a look at the four maps below, which show how Ürümqi is the natural connection point compared to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. The airports shown in Central Asia are the capitals of each country – Nur Sultan (Kazakhstan, NQZ), Bishkek (FRU, Kyrgyzstan), Dushanbe (DYU, Tajikistan), Ashgabat (ASB, Turkmenistan) and Tashkent (TAS, Uzbekistan).
Connecting in Guangzhou requires 32.4% more flying time to reach an interior destination on average. For Shanghai and Beijing the average extra flight times are 39.6% and 27.4% respectively. Of the three main ports, Beijing is the best because it’s latitude is comparable to the Central Asian capitals.
In terms of flying time, a connection in Guangzhou rather than Ürümqi only makes sense for Ashgabat. From the Turkmenistan capital, Chengdu needs 17.4% more flying time to connect in Guangzhou than in Ürümqi, but the other four cities need slightly less – 7.1% less on average.
An air silk road to Europe
It also makes sense to connect European and Chinese cities together via Ürümqi (see article). Not only are travel times to interior cities shorter than flying via the coast, route cost economics are favourable too. Nawal Taneja of Ohio State University pointed out to me that efficient long-range single-aisle aircraft like the A321-XLR can be used on these routes instead of expensive wide-bodies.
Nik Maltsev, an analyst, told me that passengers flying from Europe to inland Chinese cities via Shanghai and Dubai will fly between 11% and 21% further than those flying through Ürümqi, as shown in the two maps below.
Ürümqi may be just the aviation hub that China needs to build a new air silk road to Europe. If created, that would truly be a trade route for the twenty first century and would expand Belt & Road from land & sea into the air too.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com
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