GUANGZHOU, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) — Airports in south China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) reported distinctive efficiency in 2025, with this cluster dealing with over 230 million passenger journeys and roughly 9.72 million tonnes of cargo and mail.
This solidified its place as one of many world’s main aviation hub teams, in line with just lately launched operational knowledge from seven main airports within the area.
Experts consider that the GBA’s aviation hub cluster has considerably enhanced its capability, turning into a key driver of China’s modernization and high-standard opening-up insurance policies. This displays the area’s steady institutional innovation, improved regional coordination and rising capability to allocate international assets.
The core hubs inside the cluster, particularly Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, reported notably good outcomes final yr. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, notably, achieved a historic milestone in 2025, with passenger throughput amounting to 83.59 million journeys and cargo and mail throughput totaling 2.44 million tonnes, each reaching file highs.
Shenzhen Baoan International Airport, in the meantime, dealt with 66.49 million passenger journeys in 2025. Hong Kong International Airport, lengthy the world’s busiest cargo airport, noticed passenger numbers rise to 61 million final yr, a year-on-year improve of 15 %. Its cargo quantity grew by 2.7 % in 2025 to five.07 million tonnes.
Airports in Zhuhai, Macao and Huizhou, all situated in south China, additionally demonstrated robust development momentum in 2025, with their cargo and mail throughputs rising by 15 %, 1.08 % and 25 % yr on yr, respectively.
This sturdy demand for air journey and logistics is supported by the GBA’s exceptional financial scale and dynamic international connections. In 2024, the GBA’s complete financial 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 putting it alongside the Tokyo Bay Area within the high international tier. The GBA’s GDP was anticipated to exceed 15 trillion yuan in 2025.
Among the world’s 4 main bay space airport clusters, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA cluster leads by way of transport quantity. It consists of three hub airports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, two trunk airports in Zhuhai and Macao, and two feeder airports situated in Huizhou and Foshan, with its route community overlaying greater than 200 cities worldwide. In 2024, this cluster dealt with over 214 million passenger journeys.
The cluster has developed “express channels” for the GBA’s superior manufacturing sector and its international commerce sample of “buying and selling.”
The GBA hosts many high-value-added industries, mentioned Qi Qi, an affiliate professor at Guangzhou Civil Aviation College in Guangdong Province. Products akin to semiconductor chips, biopharmaceuticals, precision devices, core elements for brand spanking new vitality automobiles and high-end client electronics rely closely on extremely environment friendly air logistics, Qi added.
Additionally, cross-border e-commerce platforms, like SHEIN and Temu, which use versatile provide chain fashions primarily based on the idea of “small batches, high frequency and rapid turnover,” have generated huge demand for personalized air logistics merchandise like “e-commerce-dedicated routes” and “charter services,” in line with Qi.
Institutional innovation has injected new momentum into the coordinated improvement of the Greater Bay Area airport cluster. Initiatives akin to streamlined air-rail-sea intermodal transport insurance policies have considerably enhanced connectivity effectivity between main hub airports. Additionally, cross-border logistics initiatives have prolonged core airport cargo features instantly into key manufacturing zones inside the GBA, higher supporting regional industrial chains.
China’s steady enlargement of its visa-free journey insurance policies for guests from an rising variety of international locations can also be driving worldwide passenger site visitors. In the primary 11 months of 2025, the variety of overseas nationals coming into China visa-free by way of Shenzhen airport had surged by 133 % yr on yr.
In 2025, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport launched, elevated the frequency of, or resumed practically 40 worldwide passenger routes, resulting in a 19.8-percent rise in worldwide passengers at this airport in Guangdong. Hong Kong International Airport additional expanded its community, including 30 new international locations in 2025, together with Abu Dhabi and Brussels.