Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has reclaimed its position as China’s busiest airport, handling more than 67 million passenger trips in the first nine months of 2026 following a major expansion last year, the municipal government announced.
The airport overtook Shanghai Pudong International Airport, which handled 66.58 million passenger trips during the same period, official data showed. Baiyun had fallen behind Pudong in 2024 and 2025.
The expansion took half a decade to complete and includes a new third terminal and fifth runway. It cost 53.77 billion yuan (US$8.1 billion) and broke long-standing bottlenecks by increasing Baiyun’s annual passenger capacity to 120 million, the municipal government said on its official WeChat account. Authorities projected it would handle 90 million passenger trips this year.