Text: Market Cap Watch Taylor.The Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon has become the "hottest Spring Festival holiday in history".Edited by Koichi Mei.
According to the "2024 Spring Festival Travel Report for the Year of the Dragon" released by Ctrip, during the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, orders for domestic, outbound and inbound travel all increased significantly year-on-year, and exceeded the level of the same period in 2019. Ticket orders for domestic scenic spots increased by more than 6% year-on-year, and ticket orders for overseas scenic spots increased by more than 130% compared with 2019.
In addition to the accelerated recovery of the aviation industry, China's airports are also ushering in an important industry inflection point, and more importantly, the potential for short-term performance reversal and the value of long-term sustainable growth of high-quality airports.
As an aviation service industry, airports have significantly benefited from the general trend of continuous prosperity of China's aviation industry, especially the growth of non-aviation revenue brought about by traffic growth.
Zhang Kun once commented on the traffic value of high-quality airports in Shanghai Airport: it is essentially a WeChat, and after all the infrastructure and runways are built, it is a basic platform, and all traffic on this platform can be realized, and the form of realization can be business or advertising.
First, its traffic is exclusive, and no one competes with it. Second, its traffic is zero-cost, or even negative-cost. Third, its traffic is screened, and it is in a closed space, passengers can't go, and the single customer value of traffic realization is very large. This kind of traffic value is extremely attractive to any monetizer.
Zhang Kun's traffic said that it is not only applicable to Shanghai airport, but also to other high-quality airports.
If China's listed airlines are Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, the listed airports show a pattern of one super and many strong.
The standout of Shanghai Airport is largely due to its unique geographical advantages and passenger structure.
Compared with the mutual diversion of Capital Airport and Daxing Airport, the mutual diversion of Baiyun Airport and Shenzhen Airport and even Hong Kong Airport, Shanghai Airport is located in the richest Yangtze River Delta region in China, and almost monopolizes the high-quality passenger flow in this region.
From 2015 to 2019, the number of international passengers at Shanghai Airport has been close to 50%, while the number of international passengers at Capital Airport and Baiyun Airport is less than 30%, and the number of passengers at Shenzhen Airport is less than 10%.
More importantly, the international flights of Shanghai Airport are mainly for developed countries such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, and there are more high-end business travelers, while the international flights of Shenzhen and Baiyun Airport are mainly for Southeast Asia and other countries, and there is a large gap between the spending power of international passengers and Shanghai Airport.
As a famous white horse in the A** field, the profitability of Shanghai Airport is significantly stronger than that of several other airports. The larger number of high-quality passenger flows, as well as the market-priced non-aviation revenue, have become an important guarantee for the performance of Shanghai Airport.
But Shanghai Airport is not without pressure, as the number of international passengers at other airports is also growing, and competition from the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen is everywhere.
From 2017 to 2019, before the epidemic, the growth rate of international passengers at Shenzhen Airport exceeded 30% for three consecutive years, much higher than the average of 724% growth level.
According to Shenzhen's plan, Shenzhen Airport will handle more than 70 million passengers by 2025, an increase of nearly 40% over 2019, of which the throughput of international passengers will exceed 10 million, an increase of nearly 1 times over 2019.
From 2016 to 2019, the international passenger volume of Baiyun Airport increased from 13.52 million to 18.71 million, with an average annual growth rate of 115%, which is also higher than Shanghai Airport.
Among the four major airports, the biggest variable is probably the capital airport.
China's airport, which has the highest passenger traffic, has been unpopular in the capital market in recent years, and its market value has been low. In addition to the impact of Daxing Airport on the diversion of passengers, more importantly, the Capital Airport Group will divert part of the profits from listed companies, the most typical is the share of duty-free deduction points, which seriously lowers the company's profitability.
In the long run, after Daxing diverts some of the passengers, the proportion of international passengers may increase greatly in the future by virtue of the geographical advantage of being closer to the city center. The change in traffic structure may make a big difference in the future performance of Capital Airport.
In the fierce market competition, Shanghai Airport is not standing still. At present, the company has absorbed and merged Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, becoming the first listed company with two international airports in China. After the merger of the two airports, the performance scale of the listed company will undoubtedly continue to grow by virtue of traffic complementarity and resource sharing.
From the perspective of short-term recovery resilience and long-term growth certainty, Shanghai Airport is undoubtedly still the most advantageous airport in China.