In August, the civil aviation sector's data offered some signs of hope. However, among the airport performance figures for August, the four major regions showed dramatic divergence. While the eastern region led with passenger throughput growth of 5.8% and the western region posted steady growth of 4.5% backed by tourism dividends, the central region delivered a report of across-the-board "stalling": passenger throughput of 16.409 million, down 0.6% year-on-year (cumulative decline of 2.7%); cargo and mail throughput of 238,000 tonnes, down 5.3% year-on-year (cumulative growth of 1.7%); and aircraft movements of 137,000, down 7.0% year-on-year (cumulative decline of 7.9%). The central region became the only one of the four major regions nationwide to record negative passenger throughput growth in August.

On one side, the nation's aviation sector is running hot; on the other, central China's airports are ice-cold. Under this stark contrast of fire and ice, the plight of central China's airports can no longer be hidden. This is not a problem confined to a single month — it is a two-year-long stall. Once upon a time, as the three major hubs of central China, Changsha Huanghua, Wuhan Tianhe and Zhengzhou Xinzheng were all high-spirited "quasi-first-tier" airports. Why have they appeared to struggle so much in recent years? In reality, this is the "structural affliction" that central China's airports are undergoing after the high-speed rail network took shape.

Central China's airports: stalling has become the norm

First, look at the full year of 2025. Wuhan Tianhe Airport recorded passenger throughput of 31.339 million, down 0.2% year-on-year, overtaken by Nanjing Lukou and dropping out of the national top ten cities. Central Chinese cities as a whole were thus shut out of the top ten in civil aviation traffic. Changsha Huanghua Airport handled 30.25 million passengers, down 3.1% year-on-year, a steeper decline than Wuhan. Zhengzhou Xinzheng Airport handled 29.192 million, up 2.4% year-on-year, the only one of the three major airports to post positive growth.

Comparing with the national picture, the gap is even more striking. In 2025, commercial airports nationwide handled 1.529 billion passengers, up 4.8% year-on-year, while the central region completed only 164 million, up 1.6% — less than one-third of the national average growth rate. In 2026, the decline has not been halted but has accelerated. In the first eight months of this year, the provincial capital airports of the six central provinces — Wuhan, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Nanchang and Taiyuan — all recorded negative growth without exception. Wuhan Tianhe fell 3.5%, Changsha Huanghua fell 5.2%, Zhengzhou Xinzheng fell 1.1%, Taiyuan Wusu fell 5.8%, Hefei Xinqiao fell 2.0% and Nanchang Changbei fell 2.1%. Meanwhile, airports along the coast, in the Chengdu-Chongqing region, in Beijing and in Xi'an mostly continued to grow. While the national civil aviation sector is recovering, central China remains stuck in a "late cold snap." This is no longer "operational fluctuation at individual airports" but a systemic stall across the entire central China airport cluster.

Why central China? The precision strike of high-speed rail

The number one adversary in the affliction of central China's airports is the high-speed rail network. China's geographic center happens to be where the high-speed rail network is densest. Zhengzhou sits on a "mihuxing" or star-shaped high-speed rail hub, Wuhan is known as the "thoroughfare of nine provinces," and Changsha guards the intersection of the Beijing-Guangzhou and Shanghai-Kunming lines. Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha are almost the three cities with the best high-speed rail connectivity in the country. The six provincial capitals of central China are nearly all national-level high-speed rail hubs.

What is more fatal is the distance structure. The 800-1,200 kilometer range is the mainstream interval for inter-city travel in central China, and it is precisely the "kill zone" where high-speed rail has the strongest substitution effect on civil aviation. Industry estimates show that within 1,200 kilometers, high-speed rail exerts an extremely strong substitution effect on aviation. Cases are more intuitive than any argument. On June 30, 2026, the Xi'an-Shiyan high-speed railway opened, completing the Wuhan-Xi'an high-speed rail corridor. The benchmark train from Xi'an East Station directly to Hankou takes only 2 hours and 41 minutes — the total high-speed rail journey time is already shorter than the full civil aviation process of "flying plus waiting plus baggage claim." The impact was immediate: ticket prices for Wuhan-Xi'an flights fell by 20%. Flights on the Wuhan-Xi'an round-trip route plunged 47.4% year-on-year, with capacity and passenger volume falling 55.9% and 55.6% respectively. A few years ago, Wuhan Tianhe had four or five flights a day to Xi'an at peak; now only one morning flight remains on weekdays. What high-speed rail has taken away is precisely the short- and medium-haul trunk routes on which central China's airports depend for survival — business travel, family visits and short-distance tourism. These form the foundation of passenger traffic at central China's airports, and they are exactly what high-speed rail is best at "dimensional strike" against. The opening of one high-speed rail line can erase the value of an entire air route. As the "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed rail network continues to densify, such stories are repeating across central China. The competitiveness and hub status of central China's airports in the civil aviation industry will inevitably decline as the high-speed rail network becomes denser — this is not a pessimistic judgment but an inevitability under transport economics.

Airlines' choice: the "three-fly" strategy

Deeper than the loss of passenger traffic is the strategic shift of airlines. Facing the high-speed rail onslaught, the most rational choice for airlines is not to fight head-on but to seek new outlets. The most symbolic is the "three-fly" strategy proposed by China Eastern Airlines — "fly farther, fly internationally, fly to emerging markets." In 2025, China Eastern opened 24 new international routes, bringing its international (regional) routes to 249, covering 40 countries and 93 overseas destinations, making it the domestic airline with the most overseas destinations and the largest international traffic turnover. It further opened the Shanghai-Auckland-Buenos Aires route, the world's longest at about 20,000 kilometers one way, using fifth-freedom rights to turn the "southbound corridor" into a benchmark model. In 2026, this process continues to advance. What does "three-fly" mean? It means capacity is migrating on a large scale from the domestic short- and medium-haul market squeezed by high-speed rail to the international long-haul market that high-speed rail cannot reach or replace — the true blue ocean in the eyes of airlines. And central China's airports are precisely the weak point of the "three-fly" strategy. What does the international long-haul market require? It requires wide-body hub status, international transfer passengers and fifth-freedom dividends — precisely the resources central China's airports lack most. Central China's airports have limited international route supply and thin transfer passenger sources. They can neither enjoy the dividends of international long-haul routes nor escape having their domestic short-haul foundation drained by high-speed rail. For airlines, cutting flights, withdrawing routes and shifting capacity to international markets in central China is a rational commercial choice. But for central China's airports, it is real "blood loss."

The affliction of central China is also the choice of the times

The affliction of central China's airports hurts in terms of location and also in terms of the era. As the "eight vertical and eight horizontal" network becomes denser, the division of labor between air and rail becomes clearer: high-speed rail handles regional rapid connections, while aviation handles long-distance transport. Central China's airports are stuck in the most awkward position — they cannot compete with the international hubs of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen on long-haul routes, while short-haul traffic is continuously diverted by high-speed rail, making them the "sandwich layer" of the civil aviation map. It can be asserted that against the backdrop of a continuously densifying high-speed rail network, the previous competitive model of central China's airports — "competing on throughput and density of domestic routes" — has reached its end. The decline in passenger hub status is most likely irreversible. This is not pessimism but a foreseeable certainty.

But "affliction" does not equal "demise." The way to break through lies not in stubbornly fighting for throughput but in differentiated competition. Among central China's airports, some cities have already carved out their own distinctive paths: Wuhan is betting on air-rail intermodal transport. In 2025, air-rail intermodal passengers at Tianhe Airport exceeded 1.16 million, and in the first half of 2026 they rose another 14% to 635,000, ranking first in central China — since it cannot beat high-speed rail, it connects to it, letting high-speed rail deliver passengers to the terminal. Zhengzhou is betting on cargo. In 2025, its cargo and mail throughput exceeded 1 million tonnes, a historic high, ranking sixth nationwide — if it cannot win on passenger traffic, it recovers ground in logistics. Ezhou Huahu Airport handled 1.15 million tonnes of cargo and mail, ranking fifth nationwide. The affliction of central China's airports lies at the turning point of the times: they once stood at the center of China's transportation map, and now they watch as that center is redefined by another mode of transport. The denser the high-speed rail network, the further the passenger hub status of central China's airports declines — this is not something any single airport or airline can change; it is the inevitability of the evolution of the comprehensive transportation system. The only way out is to accept it, and then turn around.