The share of China's three busiest airports was already falling before the pandemic. It dropped much further in the pandemic years and has since returned to just below its pre-COVID level.
What this shows: The chart covers 2015 to 2024 and its vertical axis shows Top-3 airport share of national throughput (%). The latest value is 21.8 percent.
Conditions and method
The share is the three busiest airports’ throughput over the national total. Both moved with the pandemic, the national total from 1,352 million in 2019 to 520 million in 2022 and the three airports’ from 303 million to 78 million, so the dip and rebound of the share do not by themselves show a change in hub structure. Throughput counts a passenger at every airport where they board or leave an aircraft, so it is roughly twice the passengers carried.