The summer of 2025 has come to an end, and judging from the data of Feichang, Shanghai Pudong Airport won the first place in the country with 15.377 million passengers in the passenger throughput ranking.

While the public focuses on the competition of traditional hub airports, a little-known airport has become the biggest “dark horse” in the summer with “unconventional” data.

According to the “Summary of Summer Travel Data in 2025” released by Flight Manager, Wenzhou Longwan Airport ranked first in the growth rate of 10 million airports in the country with a year-on-year increase of 11.8%.

What is more noteworthy is that the passenger load factor of its three intercontinental routes in Milan, Rome and Madrid is more than 80%.

This airport, which has its own “legendary genes”, has been engraved with the mark of Wenzhou people since its birth.

According to reports, Wenzhou Longwan Airport is the first airport built by private fundraising in China.

In fact, coincidentally, important local transportation projects such as the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway and the S1 line of the municipal railway also had a large number of private capital participating in the early days.

This model of “building your own hometown hub” allows the airport to get rid of the path dependence of traditional infrastructure from the beginning, and better understand the travel needs of local passengers – whether it is the eagerness of business negotiations or the meticulousness of parent-child travel, it can find accurate responses in the service.

In the 62 days of this summer, Wenzhou Longwan Airport handed over a brilliant report card:

The passenger throughput exceeded 2.665 million, and the number of passenger flights took off and landed more than 18,000, both of which set new historical records.

According to the analysis of some industry insiders, behind this achievement is Wenzhou Longwan Airport’s accurate capture of market trends.

On the one hand, it has caught up with the boom of “intangible cultural heritage tours” and “small town tours” across the country, as the “air gateway” of intangible cultural heritage scenic spots such as Wenzhou Fennetern Forest Farm, and cooperated with the “one-stop air ticket, free tour of Wenzhou” activity, directly driving air tourism teams of more than 10 people outside the province to increase by nearly 60% year-on-year;

On the other hand, it closely follows the urban characteristics of Wenzhou’s “business for all”, and some netizens posted that “Wenzhou Airport is all about business”.

This summer, Wenzhou Longwan Airport has worked more than 2,100 overtime flights with United Airlines for popular business routes such as Beijing, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, and even upgraded the China Southern Airlines Guangzhou Express to a business express line with an average of 7 flights per day + exclusive check-in counter + priority security check”, shortening the flight interception time to 30 minutes before takeoff, so that businessmen who are in a hurry to wait one second less.

What’s even more rare is that Wenzhou Longwan Airport has achieved “detailed service” to the needs of different passengers.

In response to the peak of parent-child travel in the summer, the airport has set up a special child security check station, with passengers under the age of 17 increasing by nearly 20% year-on-year, and the increase of “small passengers” in Sichuan, Guizhou and other places by more than 30%;

In order to solve the “tax refund anxiety” of international passengers, the T1 international terminal has added a departure tax refund agency point, which has increased efficiency by 60%, and the new 30% of seats after the expansion of the waiting area also allow passengers with luggage to no longer have to “grab seats”.

These seemingly small adjustments just make passengers with different needs feel intimate – business travelers can catch up with their trips efficiently, parent-child families can travel easily, and international passengers can pass through customs smoothly.

It is worth pondering that at the moment when the competition in air-rail transportation is fierce, the rise of Wenzhou Longwan Airport does not rely solely on “pile data”, but has identified the differentiated track of regional airports.

In the Wenzhou travel market, the railway has also diverted a large number of short-distance passengers, such as 2.977 million summer passengers at Wenzhou South Railway Station, but the airport has opened up growth space through the combination of “tourism + business + transfer”:

The “four free transfer services” drove the number of transit passengers to increase by more than 60% year-on-year, and the passenger throughput of the international (regional) passenger business at 8 destinations increased by 8.1% year-on-year, and even intercontinental routes can maintain a high passenger load factor.

This idea of not competing with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports for the “number of routes”, but based on its own positioning, deeply cultivating the regional markets of southern Zhejiang, northern Fujian and eastern Jiangxi, and strengthening the regional aviation distribution function is the key to its ability to stand out in the summer.

From the “grassroots airport” funded by the private sector to the tens of millions of airports with the highest growth rate and almost full intercontinental routes, the summer performance of Wenzhou Longwan Airport is essentially the landing of the “Wenzhou spirit” in the field of infrastructure:

Don’t wait to build it yourself, find out the needs and do it accurately.
It uses data to prove that regional airports do not have to pursue “big and comprehensive”, as long as they understand the local area and provide services in place, they can run their own “acceleration” in the summer civil aviation market.