Chinese airports: overview and airport financials in 1H2025

Mar-2020 - the first month of lockdowns across the world in the face of a new and unknown virus originating out of Wuhan in China - is, for many, in the dim and distant past now.

But those lockdowns foretold years of misery for everyone, and in the commercial world for the air transport business especially.

Over five years on, most countries have seen their air transport networks restored to 2019 levels, and in many cases beyond, as the concept of 'revenge travel' set in - or perhaps in anticipation of another virus lurking somewhere, or an economic meltdown.

Asia Pacific countries were the last to start their recovery, compared to the western world and especially China, where it all began.

This brief overview of China's air transport scene and the financial position of four of its main airports in 1H2025 reveals that: low cost airlines and alliance member airlines still are not to be found in abundance; that domestic travel has recovered, but not international; that the main airports, though, are performing financially as well as peers in the region, and that airport construction activities continue unabated.