Aerial view of Haikou Meilan International Airport

The Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP)’s three major international airports—Haikou Meilan, Sanya Phoenix, and Qionghai Boao—are working to rapidly expand their international route networks by the end of this year, aiming to boost the province’s global accessibility in the run-up to island-wide special customs operations set to be launched on December 18. By the end of this year, it is expected that 90 international and regional routes will have been established, putting passenger and cargo flow on firmer footing as Hainan opens up further.

As of August 12, the international passenger and flight throughput of the three airports exceeded 1.4 million passengers and 10,000 flights, representing strong year-on-year growth of 33% and 20%, respectively.

Behind the growth is Hainan Airport Group, which has been actively building out the province’s international route network. Since the beginning of this year till July, it has established 16 routes to major cities, including London, Frankfurt, Jeddah, Tokyo, Osaka, and Jakarta.

On July 27, the inaugural flight of the Frankfurt–Bangkok–Sanya fifth-freedom scheduled passenger route successfully arrived at Sanya PhoenixAirport.

Hainan now boasts air links with 37 cities across 20 countries and regions, including East and Southeast Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and Europe, covering a majority of RCEP countries and providing more convenient links to BRI partner countries.

Thanks to these efforts, Haikou, the capital of Hainan Province, has become the second-most important south-facing international transfer hub in China after Guangzhou, operating routes to Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. Capacity and quality have also seen a boost. Just 9.7% of flights were operated by mid-to-long range widebody aircraft in 2019; this doubled to 18.8% by 2025. Further demonstrating Hainan’s attractiveness as an international transfer hub, in the first half of this year, over 260,000 passengers transferred through Hainan, with a year-on-year increase of 32%.

Sanya Phoenix Airport offers convenient payment services for international travelers. (Photo: Sanya Phoenix Airport)

All three airports have taken significant steps to boost comfort and convenience for international passengers, setting up one-stop service centers. At Haikou Meilan and Sanya Phoenix, services including payment set-up, SIM card purchase, and tourism guidance are offered, as well as facilities like translation devices supporting 45 languages and foreign currency exchange machines accepting up to 19 currencies. In addition, all in-terminal merchants now accept payment with overseas credit and debit cards.