Focus Insights

The joint ventureBedek - Lingyun (Yichang) Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co., Ltd, a China’s first civil aviation maintenance enterprise co-founded by China and Israel, was inaugurated on January 7th, which marked that the project construction of Yichang Aviation Industrial Park(the Park) has made substantial progress in its internationalization by developing in depth.

Relying on YichangSanxia Airport (the Airport), Yichang’sXiaoting District (the District) will cultivate the aviation industrial cluster with the combined efforts of Lingyun Airlines, Haihang Airlines and Huabin Airlines within China in the next five years. Therefore, taking “airport economy’ as its leading industry, Yichang will advance the development of “One Hour Traffic Circle” in the Three Gorges area and provide strong impetus for the expansion, growth and optimization of “Six Major 100b Industries”, thus optimizing the industrial structure and upgrading the economic restructure.

Xiaoting Will Be an Aviation Hub of Western Hubei

The geographical advantages of Yichang attracted the location of the Bedek in Xiaoting. The reporter noticed that being a hub city geographically within the riverbank of the Yangtze River of over 1,000 km from Wuhan and Chongqing, Yichang is also the throat of the economic development and aviation hub of the eco-tourism circle of western Hubei.

More importantly, Xiaoting in itself has had its only civil aviation airport-----YichangSanxia Airport (the Airport), which boasts many unrivalled advantages that other airport economic zones are shy of. Bordering Yichang-Huangshi Highway to the north, Yangtze River Golden Waterway to the south and Jiaozuo-Zhicheng Railway to the east, the airport is about 28km far from Yichang East Railway Station and about 2 km far from No.318 National Highway, Yichang Highway Bridge and Yunchi Deep-water Port respectively.

The Airport has been the second open aviation port of Hubei province in 2007, which made Yichang become the only city that has built a distribution center of aviation support at local level within the six provinces of South Central China.

In addition to the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport, the Airport has distinct advantages over other surrounding cities’ airports regarding airport category (currently being four-star airport evaluated by Skytrax, an airport and airline research organization), passenger throughput, cargo throughput and aircraft movements.

Based on the development of the Three Gorges area, Yichang is blessed with abundant population, robust economy of scale and convenient and sound traffic system and more complementary than identical in its industrial structure. All of these indicate that Yichang’s dream of being “the Capital of Air Traffic” is no longer far away.

Xiaoting Seizes Opportunities to Push the Growth of Aviation Industrial Cluster

Xiaoting Districtis the core industrial park of Yichang High-tech Zone, not only the bridgehead of the great tourist circle of the Three Gorges connecting the outside, but also the window and portal of Yichang.

In 2012, Yichang has grasped the significant national opportunities for vigorously advancing the construction of low-altitude airspace, reforming and perfecting its operation management and service guarantee system. Based on the Airport, Yichang devised the Park development and accelerated the advancement of aviation industry and airport economy.

The Park development was naturally undertaken by Xiaoting District, whose government signed cooperative agreements with Haihang Airlines on the Park project. According to the agreement, Haihang Airlines will be in charge of the Park’s overall development with the location of HaihangYichang Aviation Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd in Xiaoting. According to the principle of "One Planning by Step Implementation", the planned land area for the Park totals 5,000mu with its first-phase development of 3,000 mu. With a total investment of 6 billion yuan, the Park is intended to attract the accession of 5 to 8 enterprise headquarters in three years, and its major development fields include aircraft maintenance, assembly and components manufacturing, flight training, airline food processing, aviation logistics, headquarters economy, recreational travel and modern service industry.

Xiaoting District actively promoted the development of the aviation industrial cluster, introduced Lingyun Technology Group which finally co-founded the Bedek - Lingyunwith Israel IAI.

Meanwhile, Xiaoting District energetically brought Huabin Airlines into the Park. It was reported by staff of Business Promotion Office in Xiaoting District that the planning examination and approval were undergoing, which laid another foundation for the Park construction.

The Airport originally belonging to Haihang Airlines is experiencing its expansion and renovation of several large taxiways. It will be upgraded in the near future to be a general aviation leader of western China in such fields as manufacturing, operating services, talent training, financial conference and exhibition, sports leisure.

Airport Economy--- New Runway of Yichang’s Economic Take-Off

In recent years, Yichang witnessed its rapid economic and social development with the top-provincial-level increase of its major economic indicators outpacing the Central China’s, and its economic aggregate ranking second in the same class cities in Hubei province. The abundant talent, material and commerce flow in the course of industrialization and urbanization gave a big boost to the development of Yichang’s aviation transportation.

With its status as a sub-central city in Hubei province and key city of the eco-cultural tourism circle of western Hubei, Yichang accelerated its development of airport economy which is essential for the continuous growth of its economy and the maintenance of economic competitive advantages, by virtue of the regional advantages of connecting China\'s east with west areas and linking the south with the north and the sound growth momentum of the Airport, thus realizing the goal of becomingthe leader of Hubei province, the Central China and other cities of same class along the Yangtze River.

Similarly, as the open door to the outside, the Airport is the mark of Yichang’s image and openness, to a great extent, because a city’s position is determined by its airport construction service level and the development of airport economy. To develop into the modern megalopolis, Yichang must form a powerful resultant force featuring multi-core drive and multi-point supporting, so as to improve the overall capabilities of industry cluster, integrated service and radiating drive. The rapid development of airport economy based on the Airport advantages can not only form new apexes of economic growth, but also effectively drive the new urbanization of the administrative region of town, which can underpin the development of modern megalopolis on the basis of “Four Platforms” and constantly enrich the connotation of largeness and strength of modern megalopolis.

In other words, taking airport economy as its leading industry, Yichang will attach most importance to aviation services, logistics industry, high-tech industry and modern service industry, and increase its absorbability of the development elements of hi-tech industries, which will effectively promote the integrative growth of the material, commence and information flow of the areas near the Airport or along the Airport corridor. All of these will become the “high-speed runway” for Yichang’s economic take-off.

 (Reporter ZhengGuanghua, Correspondent: Tang Shuitang, Zhang Shixin)