The mysterious Shantou International Airport

I got an email from one of our readers a while ago asking is there going to be international airport in Shantou. Here is what he found:

The Shantou Waisha Airport, 13 kilometres away from city centre, was founded in 1956. It was estimated that at the peak period, near 2 million people, were transported through the airport. The major transportation from city centre to the airport is taxi. The taxi fee is around 20-30 RMB.

The new Chaoshan International Airport, located in Jiedong Country which borders Shantou to the southeast, is under construction. It is expected to replace Waisha in 2008 and become Southeast China’s biggest airport.

I didn’t have any information about this, so I posted it in our forum. And here are some from our contributors.

From Maggieee:

The airport in Shantou flies to Hong Kong, Bangkok and maybe Singapore, but it is more expensive than Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xiamen. At present there is only one airport in Shantou. Its full name is Shantou Waisha International Airport. It is expensive because civilian flight rights are bought/rented from the millitary (who own the airport).

From stommywu:

The latest news from the Guangdong Airport Management Corporation, the company that currently managing the Airports of Guangzhou, Shantou, Shaoguan and Meixian. The new Chaoshan Int’l Airport is now under construction with a 2.6 billion RMB investment, and the name would be Tian E, as in English: Swan.

About its size, its definitly not going to be the biggest airport in the southeast of China, I think the best guess would be half the size of the GZ Baiyun Int’l Airport.

The reasons for this airport being constructed are: first of all, according to Maggieee, its rented from the millitary and due to the managementship and the ownership issue, it creates a lot of problem which pulls the airport back from developing, in the 80’s, Shantou Airport was one of the top ten airport in China in terms of Passenger Volume, and as the other cities develop, the number starts to sink until now. Today even the Shantou people tent to use the Airport in Shenzhen, GUangzhou and Xiamen rather than their very own, so, here it goes…

Hopefully we can have some more information on this mysterious airport. If you know about it, feel free to leave some comments here.