China's airlines are stepping up efforts to launch fifth-freedom freight air routes in a bid to forge international air cargo hubs.
A fifth-freedom flight is one where an airline company from one country or region, when running an international service, gets permission to make a stopover in a third country and take on passengers and cargo.
"Launching a fifth-freedom flight air route will benefit logistics companies by allowing them to better utilize their cargo space so as to improve space utilization rates. Through its logistics network, cargo can be received from and delivered to various countries, thus forming an efficiently utilized logistics network," said Zhong Shan, an economist from the Institute of Air Transport of China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology.
On the early morning of Friday, Sichuan Airlines 3U9613, loaded with a batch of e-commerce packages, flew from the provincial capital city of Chengdu to Frankfurt in Germany. This marks Chengdu's first outbound all-cargo route to Northern Europe, and it is one of Sichuan Air Logistics' fifth-freedom freight air routes.
After making a stopover in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, the plane unloaded 18 tonnes of e-commerce packages. After getting reloaded with 7 tonnes of machinery equipment, the plane continued its flight heading for Frankfurt.
"The plane can freely load and unload cargo at three airports and flexibly allocate cargo destinations, enriching the supply of product combinations for different routes, which increases the overall cargo space availability and improves the actual utilization rate of the cargo space," said Zhao Zihu, manager of the freight air service sales department at Sichuan Air Logistics marketing management center.
In 2024, Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in east China's Zhejiang Province, Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport in east China's Shandong Province, Haikou Meilan International Airport in south China's Hainan Province, and Ezhou Huahu Airport in central China's Hubei Province launched their fifth-freedom freight air routes. These routes connect intercontinental long-haul routes with Asian and domestic routes, extending the transport range and supporting industries with high time-sensitivity requirements, such as fresh produce and cross-border e-commerce imports and exports.
China intensifying efforts to launch fifth-freedom freight air routes to forge int'l air cargo hubs
