By Yang Xingyun (楊興云)
Issue 603, January 14, 2013
Nation, page 11
Translated by Chen Min
Original article: [Chinese]

On the morning of Jan 3 this year, heavy fog clouded Changshui International Airport, which serves the city of Kunming, the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The heavy fog caused the delay or cancellation of 440 departing flights, stranding nearly 20,000 passengers.

The next day the fog cleared up but the situation at the airport was still a mess. There were no public broadcast announcements nor were passengers given updated information via the electronic screens in the departure lounge.

Passengers became irate and conflicts with airport and airline staff began to escalate. Several check-in counters were damaged, and some staff manning boarding gates decided to leave their posts and passengers began to block the departure gates stopping a large number of flights from leaving on time.

The confusion and disruption, which was initially caused by bad weather, ended up paralyzing the whole airport. After only half a year of operation, questions are starting to be asked about how Changshui International Airport is being managed.

In fact, since the airport began operation in place of Wujiaba International Airport on June 28, 2012, there have been frequent large-scale flight delays due to bad weather conditions. Efforts by the airport's management team to draw up contingency plans to deal with future delays appear to have made little impact.

On Nov 29 last year, an Okay Airways flight that was set to depart Kunming for Changsha at 9.45pm experienced lengthy delays. Due to problems with the way that airport management and staff handles the issue, 106 passengers refused to board the flight and a small number of the passengers actually physically attacked staff.

Airport Location Questioned

The regular occurrence of weather conditions that have caused delays has led some to question how the site for the airport was selected. There has long been suspicion about whether the process of selecting the site was thorough and methodical.

Wu Fan (吳凡), the former head of the team that led the construction of the new airport, explained that the strip is located on what use to be a remote mountain area (荒山野嶺). In the process of building the new airport, engineers had to flatten the mountain and fill in the valleys, in the largest man-made plain in the history of Yunnan.

Those who question the selection of the site say that the fact that the airport still occupies an elevation that is 200 meters higher than the urban area of Kunming leads to airflows that can easily cause foggy weather.  

Yet officials argue that the selection for the site of the airport was decided after a scientific study and evaluation was conducted by experts from home and abroad. The site was also approved by both the State Council and the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee.

The EO has learned from a government official that there were two alternative sites for the new airport, one of which was an ideal option. No answer was provided as to why Changshui was the final choice.

Another official who was unwilling to reveal their name told the EO that one of the proposed sites for the new airport was a township by the name of Yangqiao (楊橋鄉(xiāng)) in Kunming's Songming County (嵩明縣). This location was said to be flat and to have moderate temperatures, but in the end it wasn't chosen.

The EO also learned that the Changshui International Airport lies just twelve kilometers away from the well-known Xiaojiang fault zone (小江斷裂帶) and that because of this, certain features which enhance a structure's ability to withstand earthquakes were added to the new airport.

Given the delays caused by frequent bad weather conditions at the new airport, there have long been calls to re-open Wujiaba International Airport so that it can function as a second airport.

While airport officials acknowledge that they've discussed this option, they say it's not feasible.