In the Spotlight: Chengdu's largest O&D markets

Richard Maslen September 02, 2016

Chengdu is both a thriving business and aviation hub and a city of incredible natural beauty, where mountains, rivers and wild forests meet a bustling business district. As the most developed city in western China, Chengdu saw 8.9% growth in Gross Domestic Product in 2014 and ranks first in Forbes’ global list of the fastest-developing cities in the next 10 years. It is also regarded as one of the top historical and cultural cities in China, with over 2,300 years of Chinese heritage.

Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport currently ranks as the fourth largest aviation hub in mainland China and significant new route additions since it hosted Routes Asia in 2012 have included a direct British Airways link to London Heathrow, a Qatar Airways service to Doha, and a first direct flight to the United States with a United Airlines operation to San Francisco.

With just three weeks until the opening of this year's World Routes forum at the Chengdu Century City New International Exhibition & Convention Centre, we take a closer look at the main O&D markets from Chengdu, including a number of international destinations not currently served directly from the fast-growing city.

Based on data from AirVision Market Intelligence from Sabre Airline Solutions, we highlight the top 20 domestic, international and intercontinental markets from Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport for the first half of this year and compare those numbers with the same period last year. The results show a strong domestic performance with strong but pretty balanced growth across all top 20 markets, and a number of fast growing international destinations.