The additional checks are being launched in accordance with the nation’s anti-terrorism law, the Shanghai Airport Authority said in a statement. As reported by the Shanghai Daily, airport authorities gave no official reason for the change.

Last month, an additional security check was implemented for all passengers traveling to Hangzhou from Shanghai South Railway station until September 5. The extra measures will also be extended to Shanghai’s other train stations.

The post Prepare for Delays: Shanghai Airports Beef Up Security Ahead of G20 appeared first on The Nanfang.

Stocks for the China Railway Construction Corp. rose by as much as 6 percent on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday, while the China Communications Construction Co. experienced a similar increase in its Hong Kong stocks which rose by as much as 5.5 percent.

During Saturday’s session of the National People’s Congress, Premier Li called for giving “top priority to development” while Minister of Transportation Yang Chuantang announced the construction of 50 new airports during the 13th Five-Year Plan, which will run from 2016 to 2020.

The airport constructions kicks off a three-year action plan to develop major transportation infrastructure in China. The National Reform and Development Commission has said more than 300 projects will be launched between 2016 and 2018.

The new airport construction will focus upon China north and west where much of the country’s underdeveloped regions are located. Fourteen conjoining poverty-stricken areas and 477 key counties have already been targeted for development by the ministry.

Additionally, the plan calls for upgrading airports in Harbin, Shenzhen, Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi’an and Urumqi in order to turn them into international hubs.

“Short-term growth”

According to Tom Orlik and Fielding Chen of Bloombery Intelligence, the familiar plan to invest in infrastructure as a way to support the economy is full of risks because “the focus is firmly on supporting short-term growth, with the deleveraging can kicked further down the road.” They write:

“The risk is that if stimulus is accelerated but reform continues to lag, the government could end the year with growth on target but even bigger structural problems to deal with.”

This past January, Deputy Director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) Dong Zhiyi had said China plans to build 66 new airports over the next five years. Costing  77 billion yuan ($11.7 billion), the transportation infrastructure upgrade would pay for eleven key infrastructure projects and 52 upgrades on existing civil aviation facilities.

Citing a rise in air travel that saw Chinese take four billion domestic trips and over 100 million international trips last year, the CAAC plans to not only increase the number of airports but also the number of domestic and international routes.

Ghost airports

However, expanding China’s airports is a move that hasn’t always paid off.

Xu Hongjun, a professor at the Civil Aviation University of China, admits that the expansion of airports in China is not good for everyone. “A lot of small airports are not doing well. They need a lot of subsidies from the central government. They were too optimistic,” said Xu.

In worst case scenarios, new airports become neglected after construction because they have failed to attract passengers. 

Following the 2007 completion of the Libo Airport in Guizhou at a cost of $57 million, the airport made headlines after receiving only 151 passengers in all of 2009.

Compounding the issue of airport expansion is the fact that Chinese airlines have been rated as some of the worst in the world, and that Chinese passengers normally have to endure numerous flight delays when traveling in China. Domestically, Chinese airlines are also facing increased competition from the country’s high-speed rail network, which offers passengers a more affordable way to travel within China.

The post Transportation, Infrastructure Shares Surge After China Pledge to Invest in Airports appeared first on The Nanfang.

Provided they have checked-in on the China Eastern Airline website, passengers can proceed directly to airport security. At that point, they will be flagged through after presenting their personal ID card and submitting to the usual security check.

If successful, the policy could be implemented at Shanghai Pudong Airport. Other details of the policy haven’t been revealed.

The pilot program was implemented in advance of the Spring Festival travel rush, traditionally the busiest time of the year for traveling as Chinese across the country return to their hometowns to celebrate Chinese New Year.

“We have already seen an increase in passenger numbers this month and, as a result, there has been a rise in the number of people missing their flights,” said an unnamed official from Hongqiao Airport.

The post China Eastern Airline To Introduce Fast-Track Check-In appeared first on The Nanfang.

The massive infrastructure undertaking will not be cheap. To help cover the costs, China plans to invest upwards of 77 billion yuan ($11.7 billion) on civil aviation infrastructure this year alone. The investment will support eleven key infrastructure projects and 52 upgrades on civil aviation facilities, including work on new airports in Beijing, Chengdu, Qingdao, Xiamen, and Dalian.

Construction of Beijing’s second international airport is scheduled to be completed in June 2019. Work on the airport’s terminal and air traffic control facilities began last September, while construction of other support buildings is expected to start June of this year. Located to the south of the capital, Beijing New Airport will be the largest in the country. The airport will have seven runways and process some 72 million passengers a year.

Meanwhile, a new runway being built at the existing Beijing Airport, is anticipated to help accommodate an additional 8 million passengers a year.

Citing a rise in air travel that saw Chinese take 4 billion domestic trips and over 100 million international trips last year, the CAAC plans to not only increase the number of airports but also the number of domestic and international routes.

Xu Hongjun, a professor at the Civil Aviation University of China, admits that the expansion of airports in China is not good for everyone. “A lot of small airports are not doing well. They need a lot of subsidies from the central government. They were too optimistic,” said Xu. Perhaps the best example is the airport in Libo, Guizhou. Following the completion of construction in 2007 at a cost of $57 million, the airport made headlines after receiving only 151 passengers in all of 2009.

Compounding the problem is the fact that Chinese airlines have been rated as some of the worst in the world, and that Chinese passengers normally have to endure numerous flight delays when traveling in China. Domestically, Chinese airlines are also facing increased competition from the country’s high-speed rail network, which offers passengers a more affordable way to travel within China.

The post China To Build 66 New Airports Over The Next Five Years appeared first on The Nanfang.

Having endured severe air pollution for ten days before finally issuing an orange alert on December 29, the air pollution got so bad in Chengdu last Saturday that 10,000 passengers at the city’s Shuangliu Airport were delayed.

With visibility on the runway reduced to only ten meters, airport operations were shut down for two hours and 45 minutes. Thirty-seven incoming flights were directed away, while three were ordered to return to their point of origin. A total of 180 flights were delayed, and another 11 flights were cancelled.

Other city systems and activities were affected by the heavy smog. A run scheduled for New Year’s Day was cancelled, while the city’s second ring road was among many highways and roads that were closed yesterday.

The post Chengdu Air Pollution So Bad That 10,000 Airline Passengers Are Stranded appeared first on The Nanfang.

Loong Air flight GJ8712 safely landed at 9:55am after departing the airport at 5:46 earlier that morning. Upon its arrival, the Boeing 733 cargo jet was intercepted by some ten firefighting trucks that sprayed the plane down with foam.

The unscheduled landing resulted in a number of flight delays, however normal operations resumed later that morning.

Xiaoshan Airport said the landing was precautionary and not an “emergency landing” as commonly reported by numerous Chinese news media.

The post Cargo Jet With Wheel Problems Makes Unscheduled Landing at Hangzhou Airport appeared first on The Nanfang.

Approximately 400 live, black ants neatly packaged in glass test tubes, fitted with dampened cotton balls, were discovered in the unidentified individual’s luggage.

After customs agents questioned the owner of the package, they learned that another package containing ants was en route to Chengdu from Hamburg, Germany. Sure enough, when the package arrived, customs agents discovered another 400 live ants packaged the same way.

The People’s Daily Online report made no mention of what the smuggled ants were intended for, which frankly, could be anyone’s guess. An investigation into the case is pending.

The post Hundreds Of Live Ants Seized By Chengdu Airport Customs appeared first on The Nanfang.

Beijing Capital International Airport is constructing a new runway to ease congestion and flight delays at China’s busiest airport, while 67 kilometers away, the city is building an entirely new airport with seven runways and an 80 billion yuan price tag.

Luo Liang, head of Beijing Capital International Airport’s planning and development department, said the airport’s three runways are currently operating beyond capacity, handling about 1,600 flights a day. “The construction of the new runway will start soon and be finished before the end of 2017. We expect the runway to become operational in 2018,” said Luo.

Luo said the additional runway will increase the airport’s on-time flight rate by 12 percent. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the airport’s departure on-time rate was less than 70 percent last year.

The new runway will allow Beijing Airport to handle 115 flights per hour during peak times, up from the current 89. Over a full calendar year, the airport anticipates it will be able to receive about 8 million more passengers, Luo said.

For six days this past May, Beijing Airport renovated its oldest runway, causing hundreds of flights to be cancelled or diverted to airports in neighboring Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. According to Xinhua, the last time the runway had been repaired was in 1996. The airport anticipates renovating the other two runways in the near future as well, said Luo.

Not long after the fourth runway becomes operational, Beijing will open an entirely new airport to the south of the capital.

Opening in 2019, the “New Beijing Airport” will have seven runways and handle 72 million travelers per year. The airport is expected to be a main transportation hub for the future Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei supercity, serving the areas of Daxing, Langfang, and Wuqing. The new airport is located 46 kilometers away from downtown Beijing (Tian’anmen Square), and 67 kilometers away from Beijing Capital International Airport.

Last year, 86 million passengers passed through Beijing Capital International on 582,000 flights. It has been ranked the second-busiest airport in the world by passenger numbers for five consecutive years by Airports Council International, second only to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States.

The post New Runway And New Airport Coming Soon To Beijing appeared first on The Nanfang.

Zhao was transferring to a Wenzhou flight at Beijing Airport at noon on August 21 when she was stopped at airport security. A worker told the woman in her forties that she was not able to bring the imported cognac through the security checkpoint in her carry-on. As it was too late to transfer the cognac to her checked-in luggage, Zhao did what any responsible person that hates wasting food would do: she sat down in a corner and drank the entire bottle of cognac herself.

That created a new security problem though, and it had to do with the bottle of cognac that was now inside her.

Zhao started acting wildly and yelling incoherently. Due to her massive inebriation, when Zhao fell to the floor, that’s where she stayed. When police arrived at the scene, they decided not to let her board her flight out of concern that she had become a security risk to others and herself as Zhao was travelling alone.

Zhao was taken to a convalescence room and was checked out by a doctor. It wasn’t until 7pm when she sobered up and realized what she had done. Zhao was eventually released by police to her family who had come to Beijing Airport to escort her home.

Hard choices have been made before at security checkpoints in Chinese airports. This past June, two brothers were stopped at the security checkpoint at Guangzhou Airport for having wine stashed in their carry-on. The brothers explained that this wine had special medicinal properties used to help male fertility. However, the security workers were adamant in enforcing regulations, and so the brothers decided to drink the RMB 8,000 bottle of wine themselves (below).

And if you’re thinking this would make a funny scene in a Chinese movie, well, it already has been. In Xu Zheng’s breakout hit Lost on Journey (2010), Wang Baoqiang’s yokel character is prevented by airport security from bringing a drink onto the airplane, so he decides to drink it himself. Of course, the distinction here is that Wang’s character chugs down an entire bottle of milk.

The post No Liquid Allowed in Carry On, Woman Drinks Entire Bottle of Cognac at Beijing Airport Security appeared first on The Nanfang.

Italian custom agents made the seizure at the da Vinci Airport in Rome, arresting 20 suspects, most of whom are Chinese nationals.

The authorities were effusive in their praise of the fake rubbers, calling them “perfect facsimiles of the international brand“. The fake condoms were said to contain packaging and instructional manuals that even had the Durex logo stamped on them.

But a fake is still a fake. Authorities said the counterfeit condoms contained flaws that made them unsafe for consumer use. They were made with poisonous chemical compounds and improper materials that weren’t properly sterilized.

The condoms were being held at a warehouse on the Balkan Peninsula in Albania before having been transported to Rome. They were part of a larger shipment of other counterfeit goods made in China that also included 150,000 pieces of imitation jewelry, and 500,000 fake health supplements.

This is, pardon the pun, just the tip of the problem, however. Underground Chinese factories are flooding the market with hundreds of millions of counterfeit condoms every year. Recently, Shanghai police arrested nine suspects when they cracked an underground manufacturing ring that had been selling 300,000 of fake condoms in eight Chinese provinces.

Fake condoms are dangerous to human health as they make it easier to transmit sexual diseases, and are reported to increase the chance of male infertility.

Related:

• G-String Condom Invented by Guangzhou Students Becomes Retail Product
• Guangzhou students design innovative condom to reduce unwanted pregnancies
• Bringing creativity to safe sex through condom designs in Guangzhou
• PRD’s Contribution to the World Cup: Footballs and Condoms

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