Shanghai Airport Authority (SAA) showcased its progress and efforts of improving airport facilities and quality of services at the 2017 Shanghai International City and Architecture Expo held from Oct 31 to Nov 2.

With the theme of opening-up and innovation of urban governance, this year’s expo showcased Shanghai’s charm as a cultural city, an innovative city, and an ecological city by displaying its latest achievements in city management and construction.

The expo is a brand activity of the World Cities Day, which falls on Oct 31 every year, with SAA having been invited to attend the expo for the past three years.

This year, SAA’s pavilion was at the urban transportation construction and technology exhibition area. It used virtual reality technology, videos, photos and text to inform visitors of its goals of becoming a world-class aviation hub and serving Shanghai’s excellent global city construction.

The SAA runs two airports – Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) and Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA). Currently, the two airports boast four terminals covering 1.27 million square meters, six runways, 1.47 million square meters of freight handling areas, a comprehensive bonded zone incorporated into the Shanghai free trade zone, designed guarantee capacity of 100 million passengers and 5.2 million tons of freight, and facilities reaching the level of major international metropolises.

PVG is having an extension built, which is expected to be put into use in 2019. And Building B of Terminal 1 of SHA is being renovated and is slated to start operation in 2018.

The airport authority insists on sustainable development, applying the concepts of green, energy conservation, and environmentally friendliness into the planning, design, and construction of the two airports, which both lowers operation costs and gains social benefits.

PVG’s satellite hall uses the latest in energy conservation technology of optimized ventilation, natural lighting, building shading, and building envelope, saving energy of about 2.62 million KWh with a saving rate of over 16 percent. About 7.15 million yuan ($1.08 million) will be saved in total. The Terminal 1 renovation project at SHA won the golden prize of the 2016 Shanghai Green Renovation of Existing Buildings.

The upgrading of airport facilities bolsters a larger scale of operation. Thanks to the development of the national, regional, and urban economy, 101 Chinese and foreign airlines have launched flights to Shanghai at present, making the city’s airline network covering 282 cities all over the world. In 2016, Shanghai launched 47 non-stop flights for passengers and freight to 24 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative route. The two airports’ passenger throughput reached 106 million, ranking Shanghai the fourth of global cities in annual air passenger throughput. The annual cargo handling capacity of Pudong airport is ranked third among global airports for nine consecutive years. The two airports’ passenger throughput and cargo handling capacity have had an annual average increase of 8.8 percent and 31.1 percent respectively over the past decade.

SAA, an undertaker to build Shanghai aviation hub, is working with members of Shanghai Airport Community to improve safety, management and service quality. Innovative technology is employed to ensure safe operation and management. PVG has taken the lead in developing and deploying China’s first 27-kilometer-long IoT-based perceptual airport perimeter anti-intrusion detection system, and building China’s first smart runway, which can collect real-time data via inbuilt sensors to provide evidences for facility maintenance in airfields. SHA has established China’s leading Foreign Object Debris (FOD) remote monitoring system, able to automatically monitor the whole process of flights taking off and landing via video cameras.

Forced are united to build smart airports and improve quality of the entire service chain. A mobile app, creating “palm-top terminals”, has been developed to give passengers one-stop service for their arrival and departure. A “simplified transport” project initiated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) are carried out at the airports, making check-in, baggage check-in, boarding, and baggage inquiry all self-service. More and more overseas passengers entering Shanghai can complete customs clearance procedures within 10 seconds after the launch of a new policy that the Ministry of Public Security enlarges the application scope of passengers qualified to use self-service immigration inspection channels. The coverage rated of paperless customs clearance in Shanghai has reach 92 percent, except for special trade and cases that require administrative licensing or certificate of origin. With the support of customs and inspection and quarantine departments, the number of SAA’s departure electronic waybills has ranked second in the world, only surpassed by Hong Kong.