The Ezhou Huahu Airport in Ezhou City, central China’s Hubei province, which is the first professional cargo hub airport in Asia and the fourth of its kind in the world, officially began operations on July 17.
At 9:07 a.m., the airport received its first incoming cargo flight, Flight 767-300 of SF Airlines, from Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province.
The first incoming passenger flight, Flight CZ5679 operated by China Southern Airlines, arrived at the airport at 9:49 a.m., eight minutes earlier than expected. The flight departed from Beijing Daxing International Airport in China’s capital city Beijing at 8:00 a.m.
Both flights passed a welcome water gate, the highest courtesy of civil aviation, after arriving at the airport.
As an international air cargo hub, the airport’s air route network covers the entire country and destinations across the globe. With its 1.5-hour flight circle reaching the country’s top five city clusters and covering 80 percent of the country’s population, passengers and cargo departing from the airport can arrive at major airports of the country in one night and major foreign airports the next day.
The airport has adopted a wide range of cutting-edge smart technologies and applications, enabling passengers to pass identity verification, explosives detection, and temperature measurement at one security checkpoint in three to five seconds.