Haikou Meilan International Airport's cargo and mail throughput exceeds 200,000 tons

 Report by : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA      Images : HNA

Since 2024, benefiting from the gradual recovery of the global economy, the continuous optimization of customs clearance procedures, the rapid development of new cross-border e-commerce formats and other factors, the demand for air cargo market has continued to rise. On 17 December 2024, the annual cargo and mail throughput of Haikou Meilan International Airport (hereinafter referred to as Meilan Airport), a subsidiary of Hainan Holdings, exceeded 200,000 tons for the first time since its opening, an increase of 20% year-on-year, setting a historical high, further promoting the continuous quality improvement and upgrading of Hainan Free Trade Port's aviation logistics industry.

Since the beginning of this year, cross-border e-commerce parcels from all over the country have accelerated to Haikou. As of 17 December 2024, Meilan Airport has completed a total of 12.53 million cross-border e-commerce cargo guarantees throughout the year, with a total cargo volume of 16,000 tons and a total cargo value exceeding 1.6 billion yuan. Behind the gratifying figures is the increasingly improved international cargo route network support. With the support of Haikou Meilan Airport Customs and other relevant units, Meilan Airport has increased its cooperation with airlines and charter operators. By 2024, it has operated a total of 6 international cargo routes, including 4 fifth freedom routes, covering a total of 7 international cargo routes in Milan, Bournemouth, Paris, Vienna, Tbilisi, Incheon and Changi.

At the same time, Meilan Airport actively sorted out and optimized the customs clearance process for goods, introduced customs clearance guarantee modes such as separate bill pick-up, apron direct pick-up, and apron direct transfer, created an "integrated" service environment for port customs clearance, and further improved the timeliness of cargo customs clearance guarantee at aviation ports. It also effectively improved the level of customs clearance facilitation for cross-border e-commerce by innovating the "two places and one" supervision model for cross-border e-commerce and international express delivery, and opening the "air-to-air transfer" customs transit business for cross-border e-commerce exports.

In addition, Meilan Airport also actively focuses on customer needs, combines the regional characteristics of Hainan, comprehensively deepens cooperation with freight forwarders and charter operators, and launches preferential activities for specific products, including "increase preferential activities for pepper products", "preferential activities for okra products", "promotion activities for lotus pod special products", etc., to fully assist the export of local specialty products to the outside of the island and continuously explore new growth points for cargo and mail throughput.

In the future, Meilan Airport will focus on accelerating the strategic positioning of becoming an aviation regional gateway hub facing the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and continue to make efforts around the construction of freight infrastructure, the construction of information-based freight platforms, the improvement of freight route network layout, and the improvement of port facilitation. Expand the scale of air freight business and inject strong impetus into the high-quality development of Hainan Free Trade Port's air logistics.