On December 23, Shenzhen Airport became one of the four airports in the Chinese mainland that handled over 60 million passengers in 2024, marking a milestone for Shenzhen Airport to develop into a world-class airport, and reflecting Shenzhen’s high-quality economic and social development and important achievements in expanding high-level opening-up in this year. Its increased hub capacity will further propel and support the acceleration of developing Shenzhen into an economic center and a modern international metropolis with greater global influence.

Since the beginning of this year, in accordance with the work deployments of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee and the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government, Shenzhen Airport has been deeply integrated into the construction of Shenzhen’s “Five Centers”, firmly grasped the good opportunity brought by the shifting of civil aviation from recovery and development to incremental and quality improvement, and anchored on the goal of high-quality development. It accelerated the construction of a world-class airport, comprehensively enhanced the radiation and influence of a high-quality and innovative international aviation hub, and set new records in several development indicators including single-day passenger flow, single-day flights, and single-month passenger flow.

The number of annual passengers handled by Shenzhen Airport climbed back to 50 million in 2023 and further increased to 60 million in 2024, up by 10 million in just one year. This increase reflected not only the airport’s comprehensive development strength and competitiveness but also Shenzhen’s greater urban vitality and further opening-up to the outside world, showing the stable and positive development of the city’s economy.

It is understood that with the increase in demand for foreign exchanges, Shenzhen Airport continued to densify its domestic and international route network, promoted the accelerated circulation of people, logistics and information, actively integrated into the new development pattern, and helped Shenzhen build a world-class business environment. Seizing the historic opportunity of the opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, Shenzhen Airport has actively extended its service chain to the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary, and expanded its aviation hinterland by opening Zhongshan Terminal and Jiangmen Terminal as well as Shenzhen-Zhongshan Airport Express and Shenzhen-Jiangmen Airport Express, further facilitating the coordinated development of the Greater Bay Area. In addition, Shenzhen Airport has launched 13 “Shenzhen Express Lines” for the domestic business market, which have transported more than 33 million passengers in the past year. This not only built a fast air channel between Shenzhen and major domestic urban agglomerations such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and Chengdu-Chongqing, but also injected new vitality into the high-quality development of airport passenger transport.

In terms of international routes, in 2024, Shenzhen Airport successively opened and resumed 12 international passenger routes to Mexico City, Cairo, Vienna, Budapest, Riyadh, Madrid, etc., and increased flights for 10 international passenger routes. It now has more than 45 international and regional passenger destinations in 31 countries and regions on five continents, with more than 800 inbound and outbound passenger flights per week. This not only offered more choices for Shenzhen residents to travel and drove the recovery of the air travel market, but also significantly shortened the travel time between Shenzhen and globally important cities, innovative cities and emerging market cities. Given the fact that over 5 million of the 60+ million passengers of Shenzhen Airport this year were international and regional travelers, Shenzhen Airport provided strong support for the exchange and integration between Shenzhen and various fields around the world.

While the passenger flow reached a new high, Shenzhen Airport’s “five-star service” aligned with the world’s first-class standard, allowing passengers to experience the unique charm of the city between arrival and departure, as well as Shenzhen’s people-centered and high-level urban management.

Since the beginning of this year, Shenzhen Airport has taken the lead in piloting the “One Card (Code) for All Access” service at domestic airports, fully enabled facial recognition for boarding at the self-service boarding gates in Terminal 3 and Satellite Hall, and upgraded the changing rooms and supporting shower rooms, providing more convenient and comfortable services to the passengers. Focusing on the “last mile” of passenger travel, Shenzhen Airport has piloted a smart solution for short-distance taxi travel, upgraded the operation and management level of online car-hailing in the whole chain, realized comfortable waiting and efficient pick-up of passengers, and led the transformation of ground transportation. On top of that, Shenzhen Airport actively integrated into the construction of Shenzhen as an international consumption center, built a high-quality international brand matrix in terminals, launched food delivery services at boarding gates, introduced mobile coffee robot services and created a new experience of airport consumption. Shenzhen Airport has been rated as SKYTRAX Five-Star Airport for the third time, and has won several international awards such as the ACI award of the “Best Airport in the Asia-Pacific Region with Over 40 Million Passengers per Year”.

While providing “soft” services and improving passengers’ travel experience, Shenzhen Airport has comprehensively accelerated the upgrading of its hardware facilities and the construction of major projects, providing “hard” support for its evolution into a world-class airport. Since the beginning of this year, Shenzhen Airport has completed the international renovation of the west wing corridor of Terminal 3, more than doubling its international and regional passenger support capacity to about 10 million passengers per year. The construction of the third runway, which has attracted much attention, has been accelerated, and the main runway has been fully connected, laying a solid foundation for the completion of the main project construction in 2025 as scheduled and the development breakthrough of Shenzhen Airport at a higher capacity. At the same time, new progress has been made in the revision of the overall plan of Shenzhen Airport, and the preparatory work for the preliminary construction of projects such as the T2 terminal area and the T1 terminal area has been accelerated.

Looking forward to the future, the “3+3+3+1” infrastructure pattern of three terminal areas, three runways, three cargo areas and one satellite hall will gradually take shape, and Shenzhen Airport will compete for the global aviation market with more confidence, providing stronger support for developing Shenzhen into an economic center and a modern international metropolis with greater global influence.