A Gateway to the World on the Banks of the Yangtze River

At 4:21 am, November 27, 2022, the quiet winter night was interrupted by the roar of aircraft engines, as a Boeing 737 freighter, loaded with express parcels, landed smoothly on the runway at Huahu Airport in Ezhou, Hubei Province. After unloading, the plane was quickly reloaded with parcels and departed for its return trip to Shenzhen at 6 am. With a turnaround time of less than two hours, the flight marked the official launch of freight services at Ezhou Huahu Airport.

The airport is the first dedicated air cargo hub in Asia and the fourth of its kind in the world. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress in October 2022 outlined major strategic plans for “moving faster to foster a new development dynamic that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.” Smooth logistics will be a crucial element in the drive to establish a new development dynamic. Ezhou is currently working hard to build Huahu Airport into a modern, international air cargo hub so it can contribute to the creation of this new development dynamic.

Many wonder why Ezhou was chosen for this role. A quick look at a map, however, reveals that the city is situated on the southern banks of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, making it a convenient location for transportation.

Ezhou Huahu Airport is located within a 90-minute flight time of many national-level city clusters, including the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This puts it at the heart of an area that accounts for 90% of China’s total economic output and 80% of its population. Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is just under 100 kilometers away, and various port terminals like Sanjiang Port and Yangye Port are located just dozens of kilometers away. In addition, it is served by high-speed rail and multiple highways.

All this means that goods leaving Huahu Airport can potentially arrive anywhere in China overnight and reach overseas destinations in just two days.

The new airport began operations in July 2022 after eight years of construction. While its primary function is cargo transportation, it also offers passenger services. Currently, it operates eight passenger routes and two cargo routes to destinations such as Beijing, Chongqing, Haikou, Shanghai, and Xiamen. In January 2023, the National Office of Port Administration officially approved the provisional opening of Huahu Airport, granting permission for it to carry out cargo operations. This step paved the way for opening a gateway to the world on the banks of the Yangtze River.

A cargo plane undergoes a test flight at Ezhou Huahu Airport in Hubei Province, March 19, 2022. The airport, the first dedicated air cargo hub in Asia and the fourth of its kind in the world, officially began operations in July 2022. EZHOU CITY MULTIMEDIA CENTER / PHOTO BY HU ZHANJUN

As you drive along the Ezhou Airport Expressway toward the airport’s southern entrance, you will come across the first phase of a freight transfer center owned by the logistics company SF Express. The center covers a total floor space of 750,000 square meters. This is one of the features that distinguishes Huahu from passenger airports. Passenger airports usually consist of check-in facilities and waiting halls, but Huahu is centered around a freight transfer hub instead. During our visit to the place, staff were busy conducting integrated test runs for new equipment. “The center is scheduled to begin operations in July 2023,” explained the head of SF Group’s Hubei hub. “By 2025, the center will be able to process 688 million express delivery parcels annually, with a daily throughput of 2.277 million parcels. SF Airlines will gradually develop a new air logistics network centered on Ezhou, creating a hub-and-spoke distribution model with Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen as regional hubs. By then, the center will also be open to domestic and foreign partners for integration into their domestic and international operations.”

The construction site of the Yanji Yangtze River Bridge, located near Huahu Aiport, is teeming with construction vehicles. The main towers and pillars are steadily taking shape for this double-deck steel truss suspension bridge—the first in the world to have four main cables with different sags. Once completed, it will connect to Huahu Airport and become an important river crossing for a multimodal transportation system serving the eastern Hubei region via air-rail and air-road links.

Construction of an international comprehensive transportation hub is intensifying in the region surrounding Huahu Airport, which encompasses the cities of Ezhou, Huanggang, Huangshi, and Wuhan. The hard infrastructure connecting these four cities is continuously improving, giving shape to a modern transportation network with integrated highway, rail, air, and waterway services as well as the direct river, sea, and lake links. Ezhou’s next steps are to accelerate the construction of supporting ports, highways, and railways, and to establish an integrated system for collection, distribution, and transportation to further bolster logistics efficiency. The goal is to create an international air cargo hub by 2025 that will reach all of China and connect to the world through 4-6 international cargo routes and around 40 domestic cargo routes.

“Air cargo offers unique advantages when it comes to high-value-added products and long distances. It can also create strong industrial clustering effects,” explained Rao Xiao, director of the Air Logistics Development Service Center in Ezhou City. “The key to transforming Huahu’s transportation strengths into development strengths will be to boost the convergence and carrying capacity of production factors for high-end industries.”

On November 8 of last year, during the Fifth China International Import Expo, the 2022 Key Factors Bridging Conference on High-Quality Development of the G60 S&T Innovation Valley in the Yangtze River Delta was held. The 350-square-meter high-definition LED display used at the event captured considerable attention. The LED modules for the device were produced by Sinyopto, an optoelectronics company located in Ezhou.

Ezhou, leveraging Huahu Airport, has actively aligned itself with Wuhan to develop its optoelectronics industry. The joint efforts of the two cities are helping to bolster the development of Wuhan’s trillion-yuan industrial sector, which is centered on optoelectronics, chips, displays, end devices, and network technology. The cities of Huanggang and Huangshi are also formulating new industrial plans focused on Huahu Airport.

The new airport is attracting overseas attention, too, with agreements concluded for several projects, including a logistics hub for Japan’s Yusen Logistics. Aviation and logistics companies from Germany, France, and other countries are also developing links with the airport.

When the crucial piece falls into place in a chess match, the whole board comes to life. In 2023, Ezhou is planning to make strides on more than 522 major projects, with a total investment of more than 423 billion yuan. These projects cover areas such as infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and more. Huahu Airport will serve as the centerpiece of Ezhou’s efforts to reshape its urban transportation network, industry, and spatial layout, as well as other resources and production factors. This will see the city generating strong momentum for high-quality development and facilitating the creation of a new development dynamic.