It's official: this month Kunming will launch direct flight services to Dubai, joining a small handful of other Chinese cities with air links to the Middle East.

China Eastern Airlines announced last week that it will launch flight services between Kunming and Dubai on February 22. The thrice-weekly flights include one direct Kunming-Dubai flight and two with stopovers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The direct service, MU755/6, will depart Kunming at 4 pm and arrive seven hours later in Dubai. MU2021/2 will also leave Kunming at 4 in the afternoon, arriving in Dubai around eight hours later after stopping in Dhaka.

The new air connection is expected to boost already booming non-oil trade between China and Dubai. Additionally, Yunnan is home to one of China's largest Muslim populations, after Xinjiang, Ningxia and Gansu – which should lead to more Yunnan Muslims visiting the Middle East as leisure and religious tourists.

The addition of flight services to Dubai is another step in Kunming's evolution into an international air hub. Since the end of 2007, Kunming has added flight services to Kolkata, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.

The biggest step forward in Kunming's emergence as an international aviation hub will be the opening of Kunming's new airport. The 12 billion yuan (US$175 million) airport is scheduled to open in 2011.

The airport will be located about 30 kilometers northeast of downtown, just past the town of Dabanqiao (大板桥镇). Considerable progress has been made on the airport since construction began in 2008, with the steel skeleton of the airport terminal nearly completed and base earth layers ready for the runways.

The new airport and other infrastructure projects outlined in Kunming's ambitious 12-year development plan, which was unveiled in 2008, promise to bring major changes to the city. Alongside construction of the airport is a four-lane expressway that will link the new airport with the eastern end of Dongfeng Dong Lu via interchanges at the second and third ring roads.

Also, the timeline for construction of light rail line number six, which will run from downtown Kunming to the new airport, has been pushed forward, with construction beginning next year. The light rail was originally going to be extended to the airport by 2020 and is now projected to be completed within five years.

Photos of the new airport expressway and airport construction site:



Dubai image: Dubai Travel Guide

Seven are dead and 34 injured after an overpass collapse yesterday at the construction site of the new Kunming airport.

More than 30 construction workers were on the section of overpass when it collapsed at 2:20 pm on Sunday. According to Huang Zhibin (黄志斌), the official in charge of safety for the new airport, the collapse happened because a portion of the brace system "lost stability".

An investigation is underway to determine a more precise reason for the collapse. No details regarding compensation for the injured or the families of the deceased has been released.

Once completed, Kunming's new airport – tentatively named Kunming Zheng He International Airport – is projected to process 38 million passengers annually. The 23 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) airport is expected to greatly expand Kunming's connectivity with Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Additionally, there are rumors of plans to offer direct flights to Europe, Australia and North America from the new airport, which would link Kunming with these continents for the first time.

Its streets increasingly choked with traffic, its buses full and urban sprawl pushing development southward, Kunming is preparing to start construction on its first urban rail line, perhaps before the end of the year, according to local media reports citing Kunming Municipal Traffic Research Institute Director Lin Wei.

According to Lin, the Kunming Municipal High-Speed Rail Transportation Network Plan has already been completed. The plan includes a total of six high-speed rail lines covering a total of 162 kilometers (100 miles).

Pending governmental approval, it is hoped that phase one of the project will begin before the end of this year. The first phase of the network, Line 1, will connect downtown Kunming with the university campuses in the south of Chenggong, a county that is technically part of Kunming Municipality.

Shortly after approval is obtained and construction begins on Line 1, work is expected to begin on Line 2, which will connect Kunming's northern suburbs with the northern shore of Dianchi Lake. The two areas boast some of the city's highest concentrations of wealth with the north shore of Dianchi to become more economically dynamic via developer Shui On Land's Caohai Urban North Shore project, which is expected to cover 87 hectares and feature commercial and residential space as well as museums, theaters, an amphitheater and an "artist's community".

Other proposed lines include:

Line 3: Ma Jie (west Kunming) to Liangmian Temple (east Kunming)

Line 4: High-tech Park (northwest Kunming) through downtown Kunming and Kunming ETDZ to Chenggong New Area Bailongtan

Line 5: World Horticultural Expo Gardens (northeastern Kunming) through downtown Kunming to Dianchi Holiday Area (southwestern Kunming)

Line 6: Downtown Kunming to New Airport

Construction of Line 1 is expected to cost as much as 32 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion), with each kilometer of above-ground light rail costing around 250 million yuan and each kilometer of underground subway expected to cost between 400 million and 800 million yuan. According to Lin Wei, all rail lines within Erhuan Lu – Kunming's second ring road – will be underground.

No time schedules were provided for completion of the lines and no companies were mentioned with regards to supplying or building the network.

Shanghai subway image: New York Times

Kunming's new international airport – which upon completion is projected to be China's fourth largest airport – is in search of foreign investment of US$400 million to fund its development, according to a China Knowledge article published on Monday. Restrictions on foreign investment in China's airports were recently relaxed from a limit of 35 percent to 49 percent.

The report stated that Macquarie, Goldman Sachs and Singapore's Changi Airport had expressed interest in investing in Kunming's new airport, which is expected to greatly increase the city's access to international destinations via direct flights to Europe, Australia, the Americas and elsewhere in Asia. The airport will be developed by Yunnan Airport Group.

The new airport's first two runways are scheduled for completion sometime next year and will be able to handle 25 million passengers yearly, compared to the current capacity of 20 million at Kunming Wujiaba International Airport, which will reportedly remain operational until 2010.

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