(Yicai Global) May 18 — The cargo and mail handling capacity at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport has been rising as the number of staffers back to work has exceeded 8,000, after several airline companies have resumed business to guarantee the transportation of production materials for key companies.
The airport had 118 cargo flights per day on average between May 1 and May 12, up 37 percent from a month earlier, with about 5,300 tons of cargo handled every day, up 65 percent in the period, Yicai Global learned from Pudong Airport. Nearly half of the 34 cargo firms operating at the airport have recovered over 80 percent of their transport capacity and one-third of them 50 percent to 80 percent.
About 7,400 employees were working, living, and eating in the airport to avoid being infected since the end of March, when Shanghai started the lockdown. In the cargo transport area over 800 more staffers have gone back to work, compared with early last month, as the city is gradually resuming production and operation.
The airport has been giving priority to transporting production materials to meet the demand of companies in Shanghai in key sectors including integrated circuits, biomedicine, and auto parts, it added.
A number of Chinese carriers have started resuming passenger flights to and from Shanghai, as the city’s Covid-19 resurgence is chiefly under control. Juneyao Airlines restarted flights between Pudong airport and Longyan in Fujian province on May 16, while Spring Airlines resumed flights between Shanghai and Kunming and Dalian today.
Shanghai gradually resumed railway and airline services since May 16, Zong Ming, deputy mayor of the city, said at a press conference on that day, adding that it plans to completely go back to normal life within June.
Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione