Hawker sees business aviation traffic increase by 12% in Shanghai

Hawker Pacific’s business aviation service centre in Shanghai (SHPBASC) has reported a 12% increase in business aviation traffic in the first three months of 2013.

The two destinations for business aviation traffic in Shanghai, Hongqiao and Pudong International Airport are reporting increases in movements, together they completed 940 business aviation movements in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 840 in the same period in 2012.

“The average increases for the last several years have hovered around the 12% mark since 2010,” according to SHPBASC general manager, Carey Matthews.  “What is good about that number is it is sort of a ‘Goldilocks’ number: it is just about right.  It isn’t such a small number that it is taking too long for the industry to get established, and it isn’t such a large number that it is overwhelming the local infrastructure’s ability to support it.   We hope we will finish 2013 up 12% as well, which will get us well north of 4200 movements for both airports.”

According to Mathews, traffic at Hongqiao has been increasing as more customers that formerly operated into Pudong choose to take their passengers through the FBO at Hongqiao.

“The location of Hongqiao Airport is significantly closer to downtown.  Coupled with our purpose-built FBO and the MRO, it is natural for operators to try and route through Hongqiao, translating to an 87% increase in traffic into Hongqiao in the first quarter of 2013 compared with the same period two years ago, and 20% compared with the first quarter in 2012 – which puts into perspective the scale of that migration.”

Shanghai Hawker Pacific provides FBO and MRO facilities at Hongqiao and provides flight and ground handling services at Pudong.