After one year's renovation work, the new terminal building of Beijing Nanyuan Airport (NAY), the only airport located in downtown Beijing, was officially put into service on June 8. Yao Weihui, General Manager of China United Airlines Co., Ltd. (CUA), revealed to the reporter at the opening ceremony that NAY, so far operated exclusively by CUA, may open to more airlines after the renovation.

Although the feasibility of the opening of NAY is still open to discussion, domestic airlines, long bothered by the tight flight schedules at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), are quite exited to hear the news.

It is learned that the new terminal has an area of 10,000 square meters, making the total area of NAY to reach up to 20,000 square meters. It can now handle 6 million passengers per year and has greatly eased the congestion in terminal buildings.

According to Yao, not only can the renovation of NAY promote the development of CUA itself, but also offer other provinces a shortcut to reach Beijing. With the rapid economic development in China, many provinces are eager to open routes or increase flight frequencies to Beijing. However, PEK is almost running at its full capacity, while the new Beijing airport is still in proposal stage. NAY is thus attracting more and more attention.

As of last year, there were still dozens of airports and over ten airlines in China that failed to gain traffic rights and flight schedules from PEK, while about 30 foreign airlines couldn't arrange their flight schedules with traffic rights in hand. Everyone is expecting to open routes to popular cities like Beijing for it is directly related to the interests of airlines. However, the fact is, during its peak hour, PEK has to handle the takeoff and landing of one aircraft every 40 seconds, an insider told the reporter.

"Up till now, CUA remains the only airline that has gained approval from the air force to use NAY. In the future, we will seek the possibility of opening the airport to more airlines. Since the viable plans are still in discussion, there's no concrete timetable yet", said Yao. "CUA welcomes the introduction of other airlines to NAY and would like to see the successful implementation of the plan".

On the other side, Yao admitted that "the whole thing will have to wait for approval from the military and the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China), for NAY serves as a joint use military and civilian airport at the same time". Meanwhile, although the overall guarantee capacity of NAY has increased a lot after the renovation, further improvements need to be made in terms of infrastructure, including water and electricity supply, the construction of surrounding roads and traffics, etc. It seems that the opening of NAY may take some time.

According to an anonymous airline official, who is not very optimistic about the vision, "It is true that many airlines may become interested once NAY announces to open to other airlines. But the problem is, even after the renovation, NAY can only park 25 aircraft, while the aircraft fleet of CUA will expand to 23 aircraft by the end of this year. Thus there is limited space left for other airlines". Moreover, CUA's parent company -- China Eastern Airlines -- is ambitious about expanding its businesses in Beijing. In this case, it is CUA's priority to figure out how to develop its business more rapidly. Instead of introducing other airlines, CUA might as well add new routes to its schedule as soon as possible. On the whole, the opening of NAY may still be far off, just as the construction of the new Beijing Airport.