Economic Watch: China's Greater Bay Area airport cluster ranks among top aviation hubs globally in 2025

GUANGZHOU, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Airports in south China's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) reported exceptional performance in 2025, with this cluster handling over 230 million passenger trips and approximately 9.72 million tonnes of cargo and mail.

This solidified its position as one of the world's leading aviation hub groups, according to recently released operational data from seven major airports in the region.

Experts believe that the GBA's aviation hub cluster has significantly enhanced its capacity, becoming a key driver of China's modernization and high-standard opening-up policies. This reflects the region's continuous institutional innovation, improved regional coordination and growing ability to allocate global resources.

The core hubs within the cluster, namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, reported particularly good results last year. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, notably, achieved a historic milestone in 2025, with passenger throughput amounting to 83.59 million trips and cargo and mail throughput totaling 2.44 million tonnes, both reaching record highs.

Shenzhen Baoan International Airport, meanwhile, handled 66.49 million passenger trips in 2025. Hong Kong International Airport, long the world's busiest cargo airport, saw passenger numbers rise to 61 million last year, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent. Its cargo volume grew by 2.7 percent in 2025 to 5.07 million tonnes.

Airports in Zhuhai, Macao and Huizhou, all located in south China, also demonstrated strong growth momentum in 2025, with their cargo and mail throughputs increasing by 15 percent, 1.08 percent and 25 percent year on year, respectively.

This robust demand for air travel and logistics is supported by the GBA's remarkable economic scale and dynamic global connections. In 2024, the GBA's total economic output had reached 14.79 trillion yuan (about 2.12 trillion U.S. dollars), surpassing that of the New York and San Francisco Bay Areas and placing it alongside the Tokyo Bay Area in the top global tier. The GBA's GDP was expected to exceed 15 trillion yuan in 2025.

Among the world's four major bay area airport clusters, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA cluster leads in terms of transport volume. It includes three hub airports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, two trunk airports in Zhuhai and Macao, and two feeder airports located in Huizhou and Foshan, with its route network covering more than 200 cities worldwide. In 2024, this cluster handled over 214 million passenger trips.

The cluster has developed "express channels" for the GBA's advanced manufacturing sector and its global trade pattern of "buying and selling."

The GBA hosts many high-value-added industries, said Qi Qi, an associate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation College in Guangdong Province. Products such as semiconductor chips, biopharmaceuticals, precision instruments, core components for new energy vehicles and high-end consumer electronics rely heavily on highly efficient air logistics, Qi added.

Additionally, cross-border e-commerce platforms, like SHEIN and Temu, which use flexible supply chain models based on the concept of "small batches, high frequency and rapid turnover," have generated enormous demand for customized air logistics products like "e-commerce-dedicated routes" and "charter services," according to Qi.

Institutional innovation has injected new momentum into the coordinated development of the Greater Bay Area airport cluster. Initiatives such as streamlined air-rail-sea intermodal transport policies have significantly enhanced connectivity efficiency between major hub airports. Additionally, cross-border logistics projects have extended core airport cargo functions directly into key manufacturing zones within the GBA, better supporting regional industrial chains.

China's continuous expansion of its visa-free travel policies for visitors from an increasing number of countries is also driving international passenger traffic. In the first 11 months of 2025, the number of foreign nationals entering China visa-free via Shenzhen airport had surged by 133 percent year on year.

In 2025, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport launched, increased the frequency of, or resumed nearly 40 international passenger routes, leading to a 19.8-percent rise in international passengers at this airport in Guangdong. Hong Kong International Airport further expanded its network, adding 30 new global destinations in 2025, including Abu Dhabi and Brussels. ■