Geographic Patterns of Air Passenger Transport in China 1980–1998: Imprints of Economic Growth, Regional Inequality, and Network Development*

*The first author would like to acknowledge financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 49871026) and the Key Projects of Knowledge Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KXCX2-307-01). The second author is grateful for a travel grant from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Truman A. Hartshorn for valuable comments. Points of view or opinions in this article are those of the authors alone. Correspondence or request for reprints should be directed to Fahui Wang at [email protected]

Abstract

This research analyzes the geographic patterns of domestic air passenger transport in China from 1980 to 1998, with three foci: (1) impacts of economic reforms, (2) regional inequality in air transport development, and (3) network development. Accessibility to air transport improved significantly as China expanded its air transport system, 1980–1998. The dominance of major airports declined as the air transport system expanded to medium and small cities. The centroid of passenger volume migrated toward southeast, consistent with the expansion of economic growth in southeast coastal areas. The rule of distance decay in air traffic was more applicable to China in 1998 than in 1985 as the market economy worked its way into China's air transport system. The East Region had a much higher share of air passengers than its share of population and GDP, followed by the West and the Middle Regions, reflecting an interesting “flyover” effect. By 1998, a hub-and-spoke air transport system was clearly in place in China.

Key Words:

• air transport geography
• China
• regional inequality
• flyover effect
• hub-and-spoke system

Notes

¹Other airlines include Air Great Wall, CNAC Zhejiang, China Xinhua, Wuhan, Changan and Shanxi Airlines.

Data source: Statistical data on Civil Aviation of China 2002.

¹CNAC stands for China National Aviation Corporation.

Compiled from news at the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) web site at http://www.caac.cn.net/ztbd/merge/1.htm (data as on October 11, 2002).

Note:

*indicates cities that are not provincial capitals.

Notes:

*indicates significant at 0.05;

**indicates significant at 0.01; and

***indicates significant at 0.001; t-values in parentheses.

¹There is also close correspondence between GDP and revenue passenger-kilometer (RPK) flown. The ratio of their growth rates (RPK/GDP) once stood at 2:1, and recently declined to about 4:3 in the world (Graham 2000, 311). During the study period, the average RPK/GDP ratio in China was 1.68.

²Seven cities (Beijing, Jinan, Wuhan, Xi'an, Yinchuan, Nantong, and Guilin) had two airports. Their records were merged for analysis.

³The four Special Economic Zone Cities were Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou in Guangdong and Xiamen in Fujian. The sixteen Designated Coastal Open Cities were Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai, Lianyungang, Nantong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang, Beihai, and Fangchenggang.

⁴A county unit includes: a county or autonomous county (Xian) or banner or autonomous banner (Qi), a county-level city (Xian-ji-shi), the only district or merged district (Shi-xia-qu) of a stand-alone higher-order city (Di-ji-shi), multiple districts of a large city, and others (e.g., subdivision of county-level unit needed for regional analysis).

⁵More accurate computations of population and economic centroids require data at a better resolution, for example, the county-level data. It is reasonable to speculate that the economic centroid could have moved further east than shown in Figure 4, because coastal areas within each coastal province also tended to develop faster than their inland counterparts (Wang 2002, 243).

⁶The increase of β (in absolute value) from 1985 to 1998 is contradictory to findings in the literature. Given the low R ², the gravity model cannot be considered to fit China in 1985, and thus we should not read much from the change of β value over time.

⁷One may also note that in Table 4 only one city, Wuhan, from the Middle Region, was ranked among the top fifteen cities in air passengers in both 1980 and 1998. The West Region, with less total population and GDP than the Middle, placed six and four cities among the top fifteen cities in 1980 and 1998, respectively.

⁸In a Chicago stage play “Flyover,” people in the U.S. entertainment industry traveled from coast to coast and referred to anywhere in between as “flyover,” in which they had little interest.

⁹Based on a survey by the Xinjiang Airlines in 1995 (Dali Li 1998, 54), 44.35 percent of passengers within Xinjiang were “civil employees” on business (gong-wu) trips, whereas the same group accounted for only 32.5 percent among passengers outside Xinjiang.

¹⁰Research also reveals that average urban wage in the West Region was also higher than in the Middle (Wang 2002, 241). Workers in state-owned enterprises and governmental employees were paid higher wages as an important recruiting and retention strategy in the West. Most fiscal transfers (subsidies) tended to flow toward the West. Some interpreted this as the Chinese version of “affirmative action” since the West has higher percentages of non-Han minorities (Raiser 1998, 18).

*The first author would like to acknowledge financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 49871026) and the Key Projects of Knowledge Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KXCX2-307-01). The second author is grateful for a travel grant from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Truman A. Hartshorn for valuable comments. Points of view or opinions in this article are those of the authors alone. Correspondence or request for reprints should be directed to Fahui Wang at [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fengjun Jin

A professor

Fahui Wang

An associate professor