During this Spring Festival holiday, popular tourist cities such as Sanya and Haikou in Hainan welcomed a large number of tourists, but on the return trip of the Spring Festival, it was difficult to find a ticket and many tourists could not go.
Yesterday (17th) was the peak of the return of the Spring Festival, and the reporter of "Spring Festival Micro Observation" came to Hainan to see how Hainan Airport coped with the peak of "outlying islands".
CCTV reporter Chen Xi:On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the peak of the return passenger flow of the Spring Festival was reached, and it was now 5 o'clock in the morning on the 17th, and Sanya International Airport had ushered in the morning peak of departure. Today, 45,000 passengers are expected to depart from here, which is 15 times.
From 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. on the 17th, Sanya Airport ushered in the first peak departure hour of the day. The reporter saw at the scene that all 64 check-in counters were open, and about 70 to 80 passengers could go through the procedures in one minute.
In order to cope with the flow of returning passengers, Sanya Airport has set up 6 volunteer service points in the densely populated areas of the terminal, and volunteers hold light signs to provide guidance services for passengers.
There are 15 minutes to board, which is not too late in normal times. However, during the peak departure period on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, if there is no timely guidance from volunteers, passengers are likely to miss their flights.
The reporter learned that the passenger flow in Hainan during the Spring Festival in 2024 will increase significantly, with an overall year-on-year increase of more than 30%. Compared with the beginning of the Spring Festival, the outbound time is relatively relaxed, and the release of travel demand is not so concentrated.
The airport staff told reporters that the return passenger flow of this year's Spring Festival began on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and then gradually increased and lasted for many days. Especially on the eighth day of the first lunar month, there are 4 at Sanya Airport alone50,000 people left Hong Kong, which is the usual 15 times.
In order to solve the problem of "outlying islands", since February 16, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has coordinated with airlines to increase capacity by replacing wide-body aircraft to operate flights.
Chen Baotong, Manager of Sanya Phoenix Airport Operation Command Center:We only have 10 widebody seats available, which is a pre-arranged Gantt chart, and through refined management, we can make widebody machines fly as much as possible.
As one of the few single-runway airports in China with a throughput of 20 million, Sanya Airport has only one runway, but its operation level can meet the take-off and landing of wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 777 and Airbus A350. At the peak of the return journey in these days, the airport operated nearly 140 wide-body aircraft per day, accounting for 36% of the airport's total flight volume, exceeding the record high.
The reporter calculated that the change of narrow-body aircraft to wide-body aircraft can allow more than 100 seats per flight. At present, there are 13 additional flights per day, which means that more than 2,500 passengers can be sent off the island every day.
While the capacity is increasing, the route resources are also keeping up. Air China added two additional routes to Beijing Capital and Chengdu Tianfu; China Southern Airlines added 2 routes to Guangzhou and Shenzhen; Hainan Airlines added Changsha route. From February 18 to 24, a total of 194 new flights were added to the three major airports on Hainan Island, and more than 32,000 new seats are planned.
Fu Jie, General Manager of Hainan Airlines Sanya Branch:According to the support capacity of Haikou and Sanya airports, we have allocated sufficient wide-body aircraft capacity, mainly to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other routes.
At present, the three major airports of Sanya, Meilan and Boao on Hainan Island, in order to alleviate the large flow of passengers returning after the holiday, are allocating capacity resources in a unified manner to maximize the potential.
The reporter saw in the operation control center of Haikou Meilan Airport that in order to ensure the new routes, the "harbor stand management system" has been upgraded here.
Lin Xiaobin, Dispatching Supervisor of Haikou Meilan Airport Navigation Department:The so-called Bay Area positions are the locations of these corners on the map. We are further exploiting the potential to make the most of these free locations, which will enable us to take off and land more flights at our airports.
At the same time, the airport also launched a "non-full runway take-off procedure". This program can save about half of the runway distance, further improving the efficiency of ground taxiing and flight clearance at the airport.
Zhao Congcong, Director of Runway Safety Management, Aviation Department of Haikou Meilan Airport:To put it simply, it is to enter the runway through the nearest taxiway to carry out departures, which can reduce the ground taxiing time of the aircraft by 3 to 4 minutes, and provide favorable conditions for subsequent flight operations.
In order to ensure the smooth boarding of passengers at the three major airports on the island and give full play to the advantages of air-rail combined transport, from February 16, the Hainan Island High-speed Railway will add 3 high-speed rail trains between Sanya Station and Haikou East Station, 28 trains to Phoenix Airport Station, 144 trains to Meilan Station, and 26 trains to Boao Station, so as to fully meet the needs of passengers to transfer transportation modes to the airport.
**: CCTV news client
Process edit: u031