Jiaxing is an up-and-coming city of about 1.2 million urban population with an ancient history. From Jiaxing’s train station, it is exactly a 29-minute train ride from Shanghai’s Hongqiao International Airport (SHA) by HSR train. Jiaxing is building an international airport, which will be anchored by a mega air cargo hub. We are hired to master plan this airport and design its mega air cargo hub’s architecture. The latter will be presented separately in an article under the name of Jiaxing Air Cargo Hub.
The existing military runway at Jiaxing Airport (labeled R1, as the 1st runway) has a northeast-southwest orientation, measuring 2800 meters long and 35 meters wide. R1 is still used by the PLA army even though at a reduced frequency. It will not be used for the new civic airport. Calculating the estimated cargo and passenger volumes and flight density, we recommend starting off-airport operation by adding a new 4F-level runway (labeled R2, as the 2nd runway). When the airport reaches capacity, it will require a 4E runway (labeled R3, as the 3rd runway).
We placed R2 and R3 in parallel in the east-west direction in a long-distance layout and arranged a dual-core cluster for passengers and cargo between the two runways. Among them, R2 intersects partially with R1. The gap between R3 and R1 is for an appropriate land-side access system for the freight hub, which offers the most direct connection with Jiaxing’s main highway on the northeast side. The east-west airport axis places cargo in the east, and passengers in the west, separating passengers and cargo logically. This is the preferred scheme.
The airport’s peripheral aviation accessory functions are organized into two zones: in the northeast an industrial zone led by logistics, distribution, and manufacturing; and in the west a new aviation town, led by passenger terminal, hotels, resorts, commerce, and entertainment, etc. Buffer zones are set up between the civil area and military control area of the airport, and the cargo hub and passenger terminal are naturally separated by taxiways and aprons on the airside
The main Jiaxing passenger terminal and its future expansion will be located immediately to the north side of R2. There are seventeen contact gates and fourteen remote aircraft parking positions for this terminal. At the western end of R2, it is Jiaxing’s business jet center, with twelve dedicated hangars and a special business apron of about 2000 square meters. Opposite the Jiaxing passenger terminal to its north, we planned a low-cost passenger terminal serving the Yangtze River Delta region and China’s east coast region. This is an area with a 1 – 2 hour flight radius. It will have sixteen dedicated gates and five remote aircraft positions. For this entire half of Jiaxing Airport, we planned large land parcels inside the airport boundary on the west side of the airport for the first-tier aviation service industries such as hotels, offices, airline headquarters, and high-value commercial development.
Lastly, we designed a large MRO center serving the anchor cargo airlines’ cargo aircraft and other aircraft that are stationed in and out of Jiaxing airport. This MRO complex is in between the Jiaxing terminal and the low-cost terminal, and directly across the taxiway from the cargo hub, which is on the east side of the airport.
