The Chinese government will distribute subsidies to 146 secondary airports based on production statistics for the second half of 2013 to the first half of 2014 in accordance with regulations governing the use of the Civil Aviation Development Fund, according to the “Notice on 2015 Budget Proposal for Secondary Civil Airports” on the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) website published on December 8.
According to CAAC data, a total of RMB1.2 billion in subsidy will be distributed to 146 secondary airports in 2015, and five provinces Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang will be getting the largest shares, at RMB130.42 million, RMB120.43 million, RMB88.64 million, RMB71.55 million and RMB69.42 million respectively.
Jiuzhaigou Huanglong Airport will be getting the single largest subsidy of RMB16.03 million and Changhai Airport will be allocated the smallest subsidy at RMB4.28 million.
By comparison, more airports will be getting subsidies next year (146 in 2015 Vs 135 in 2014, and the total amount of subsidy also went up from RMB1.7854 billion to RMB1.21113 billion.
Recently, secondary airports have drawn widespread criticism for incurring huge losses of up to 80%, according to some media reports. Some airports with massive losses also faced the embarrassment of having more staff than passengers.
CAAC director Jiaxiang Li said: “Currently 50 out of 200 airports across the country are profitable and the rest are operating at a loss. The reason for this lies in the airports’ management systems.”(Translation by David)
