On November 29, Shenzhen Airport’s third runway officially commenced operations. At 10:08 a.m., Shenzhen Airlines flight ZH9103 took off smoothly from the third runway; at 10:13 a.m., China Southern Airlines flight CZ3590 landed steadily on it, marking the ‌first takeoff and first landing‌ on the new runway.

With the third runway now operational, Shenzhen Airport has fully entered the ‌“three-runway era”‌, achieving a leap forward in hub capability, support capacity, operational efficiency, and development potential.

Shenzhen Airport’s first runway began service in 1991 alongside the airport’s opening, and the second runway was put into use in 2011. Prior to the third runway’s commissioning, Shenzhen Airport was one of the busiest dual-runway airports in China, with an annual peak of ‌428,000 flight movements‌ and over ‌1,300 flights per single day‌. Shenzhen Airport’s third runway is a national key project under the 14th Five-Year Plan and a major engineering project in Guangdong Province. Located between the second runway and the Guangshen Yanjiang Expressway, the third runway is ‌3,600 meters long and 45 meters wide‌, built to the highest ‌4F airfield rating‌, capable of accommodating all types of large passenger aircraft.

The newly operational third runway will work in coordination with Shenzhen Airport’s existing two runways. Runway operations will be further optimized, enabling ‌eight different operational modes‌ based on traffic volume at different times, supporting dual-directional north-south operations. This will effectively ‌distribute takeoffs and landings‌, relieve operational pressure, and create favorable conditions for launching more passenger and cargo routes, increasing flight frequencies, and expanding aviation capacity—opening up greater room for improved operational efficiency, ‌on-time performance‌, and traveler experience.

In addition to the third runway, construction of Shenzhen Airport’s ‌Terminal 2 Complex‌, ‌North Cargo Area‌ with the integrated supporting facilities began in August this year. The airport is accelerating the development of a ‌“3+3+3+1” infrastructure framework‌—three terminal areas, three cargo areas, three runways and one satellite hall—supporting a comprehensive leap in passenger and cargo handling capacity. In the future, it will be able to handle up to ‌80 million passengers‌ and ‌4.5 million tons of cargo and mail annually‌, better serving regional air logistics, international trade, tourism and high-end manufacturing. It will also foster a ‌closer collaborative development model‌ with Hong Kong and Guangzhou airports, adding new momentum to the construction of the ‌Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area airport cluster‌ and regional high-quality development.