Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

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Journal of Transport Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo

The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system q

Megan S. Ryerson a,b,, Xin Ge a
a
b

Department of City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, 127 Meyerson Hall, 210 S. 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 200 South 33rd Street, 203 Moore Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Keywords:
China
Aviation
Turboprops
Fuel consumption
Short-haul aviation

The Chinese aviation system is in a period of rapid growth, with signicant growth in second tier and
emerging cities. Lower density cities could be well served by regional aircraft, either regional jets or
turboprops, which offer different qualities and a different future for Chinese aviation. Turboprops offer
a high level of fuel efciency compared with regional jets which may improve the cost economics for
carriers and reduce the air quality and climate impacts of a growing aviation system in a region where
air quality and greenhouse gas emissions are a serious concern. However, regional jets are known for
their superior quality of service and faster travel speeds. We begin with a spatial analysis of existing
Chinese short-haul aviation networks and nd that turboprops are deployed in limited number and
are dispersed throughout the country. Their limited use, however, is not because of their cost economics.
For the existing regional jet network we estimate the trade space of fuel and time for the replacement of
regional jets with turboprops and nd that all regional jet routes in China would generate savings if
replaced with turboprops. We next establish future short-haul aviation routes between new and
emerging airports and estimate the likelihood that a turboprop will be used. The nding that the most
viable turboprop markets are spatially dispersed through the country validates considering turboprop
investment at the state-level as a component of the established Chinese aviation sustainability initiative.
 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

of improving the competitiveness and efciency of domestic and

international aviation.
The aviation expansion into Chinas low-density areas follows
years of reform in the Chinese Aviation System (CAS). In 2002,
the state liberalized the CAS, a liberalization that was notably
different compared with the free-market liberalization in the
United States. Shaw et al. (2009) notes that the Chinese liberalization led to airline consolidation leading to three major carriers
serving three major (northeastern) hubs, and a protectionist
strategy to reduce route overlap for the three major carriers. The
goal of the three carriers to be competitive internationally or to
serve the large domestic population remains, however, a debate
(Lei and OConnell, 2011). Lin (2012) nds that that the state focus
on major national hubs and alliance partners for international
travel leads to an underdeveloped system of regional and subregional hubs to support regional trafc. While the three major
airlines focus on boosting domestic coverage, many areas with
insufcient air service remain. Shaw et al. (2009) discusses how
regional commuter airlines could ll this gap by partnering with
Chinas major carriers and serving the second-tier and emerging
hubs that are not protected. This follows the practice of regional
commuter carriers and major airlines partnering to serve lowdensity markets in the US.

The Chinese aviation system is in a period of rapid growth. In

the 30 year period from 1980 to 2009, Chinas civil aviation system
grew at a rate of 17.6% per year, with the number of airports
growing from 77 to 166 and annual trafc volume increasing from
3.43 million to 230 million (Lin, 2012). The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the aviation authority in the Ministry for
Transport, maintains a target of 244 airports across the country
by 2020 with the goal of expanding aviation coverage in their National Aviation Network Plan (CAAC, 2007). The CAAC aims to enlarge the aviation network such that 80% of urban and suburban
areas are within a 100 km (62 miles) of aviation service by 2020.
As the eastern region of China is well covered with airports and
aviation service, much of this growth will be in second tier and
emerging western and southern cities. In growing the aviation
services in these regions, the CAAC is looking to strengthen
hub-and-spoke networks across the country to meet the dual goals

q
This article belongs to the Special Issue on The Changing Landscapes of
Transport and Logistics in China.
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mryerson@design.upenn.edu (M.S. Ryerson).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.03.009
0966-6923/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Ryerson, M.S., Ge, X. The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Wang and Jin (2007) note that the physical and socioeconomic
traits of the more remote emerging airport regions include
challenging terrains along with high poverty and percentages of
minority populations. These regions are uniquely positioned for
service by regional commuter airlines utilizing short-haul aircraft,
either turboprops or regional jets. These aircraft are smaller than
traditional narrow body jet aircraft which are widely used in China
today (Shaw et al., 2009), offer lower ownership costs and operating costs per operation, and, because they necessitate shorter runways, are able to service some smaller and less developed airports.
While aircraft in both of the short-haul aircraft categories share
similarities, the adoption of short-haul aircraft in CAS expansion
will have vast impacts on the economic and environmental impact
of aviation. Firstly, turboprops necessitate shorter runways
(1400 m compared with 2000 m for jets), offering the possibility
of serving more challenging terrains; as a result, turboprops offer
enhanced expansion opportunities. Secondly, turboprops are signicantly more fuel efcient compared with regional jets; however, this fuel efciency comes at the cost of passenger level of
service (Ryerson and Hansen, 2010). Turboprops have a slower
travel speed, and, in addition, are perceived as less comfortable
compared with jets. In fact, Adler et al. (2005) nd that the
disutility of passenger travel on a turboprop can be up to $40/
passenger-trip. In addition, turboprops have a shorter range of
travel
(9001300 miles)
compared
with
regional
jets
(14002000 miles) and have smaller cargo holds, limiting their
versatility to serve a network.
Turboprops offer signicant benets at a cost, namely a cost to
passengers in the form of reduced service quality and to airlines in
the form of reduced exibility. In the 1980s and 1990s, the relatively loud, uncomfortable turboprop with a limited operational
range fell out of favor with the introduction of regional jets
(Johnston, 1995; Mozdzanowska and Hansman, 2004). Recent
improvements to passenger level of service and operating range,
coupled with fuel price increases are leading a surge of interest
in new turboprop models. New turboprops are currently in service
for North American carriers such as Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air,
Canadas Porter Airlines, along with other carriers worldwide. In
2008, turboprops were 4% of the domestic seat capacity provided
by US carriers. While this is a small percent, it is very robust; in
fact, turboprops saw a reduction in total seat capacity offered in
2008 of 6% compared with 2007, a minimal decline compared with
the 11% seat capacity reduction from 2007 to 2008 seen by narrow
body aircraft. Because turboprops consume fuel at a relatively low
rate, the Government Accountability Ofce (GAO, 2009) concludes
that the market for turboprops is small but stable compared with
other jet aircraft, a nding empirically conrmed by Ryerson and
Hansen (2010). Aircraft manufacturer plans also signal a renewed
interest in turboprops. As of 2013, ve aircraft manufacturers in
as many different countries China, India, Korea, Canada, and Italy
maintain serious plans to develop and market 90-seat turboprops; such a move will boost turboprop seat capacity and also increase the competitiveness of turboprops with regional jets
(Perrett, 2013). Also signaling a growing market for turboprops is
the increased competition in the engine market, with General Electric designing a turboprop engine to contend with the established
Pratt & Whitney model (Morris, 2013).
While turboprops may be close to shedding their perception as
aircraft with low quality of service and exibility, their perception
as unsafe aircraft lingers, particularly in China. Two crashes of the
Xian MA-60 turboprop, the model favored in China and manufactured by Chinese manufacturer Xian Aircraft Industrial Corporation, occurred on the same day in the summer of 2013. In the
immediate aftermath, the civil aviation authorities of Indonesia
and Myanmar grounded their eets of the MA-60 (Dennis, 2013).
There are instances of turboprop crashes worldwide, including a

crash in Buffalo, New York in 2009. Turboprops are not necessarily

unsafe aircraft, however, they are generally operated by inexperienced crew and pilot error is a frequency cause for such crashes
(Ryerson and Hansen, 2010).
Turboprops present challenges compared with regional jets:
institutional challenges such that the operating crew are welltrained, and passenger preference challenges because of their perceived discomfort. However, the signicantly lower cost of operation reduces the break-even point for which such services are cost
effective. This lower cost allows airlines to serve more destinations
and complete their hub networks, increasing their market dominance and allowing them to charge higher fares (Morrison and
Winston, 1990). Much of this savings comes in the form of reduced
fuel costs. In addition to nancial health, turboprops present an
opportunity for the CAS because of their potential to reduce aviation fuel consumption, a major initiative of both public and private
entities worldwide. The consumption of fuel has signicant economic and environmental implications. The cost of fuel plays a large
role in the economic health of the airline industry worldwide.
Because of the skyrocketing cost of fuel, in 2012 fuel was 33% of
operating cost for US-based carriers compared with 9% in 2004
(BTS, 2013). This percentage is likely larger in China, as fuel costs
are greater in China compared with the US. Fig. 1 shows US and Chinese jet fuel prices (IndexMundi, 2013; National Development and
Reform Commission, 2013). Currently, Chinese jet fuel prices are set
by the National Development and Reform Commission. While both
follow the same trend, Chinese prices are higher, making fuel consumption an even greater cost concern for airlines in China.
There is signicant uncertainty, however, regarding fuel prices
going forward. Ma and Oxley (2010) address tentative moves by
the Chinese government towards energy market deregulation,
which may bring down energy prices. Deregulation faces signicant barriers and challenges, however, surrounding the future of
energy regulation and resulting prices in China with uncertainty
(Ma et al., 2009). Despite the uncertainty, Ma et al. (2009) emphasize the need for energy pricing reform in China, particularly in the
response of prices to demand, because of the need to manage
transportation system congestion and environmental emissions.
The consumption of fuel leads to environmental externalities in
the form of local and global pollutants, both of which have reached
large levels in China. Regarding global Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
emissions, China surpassed the US in 2007 and ranked rst on
the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions country list. Emissions of
CO2 have not slowed, as CO2 emissions in China grew from 6.8 billion metric tons in 2007 to 8.3 billion metric tons in 2010, accounting for 26.4% of global 2010 CO2 emissions (United Nations
Statistics Division, 2013). Emissions from aircraft are particularly
signicant, as GHG emissions at altitude can be particularly harmful in terms of an increased warming effect (Williams et al., 2002).
Aircraft also emit local pollutants such as CO, NOx, and PM during
their ground taxi procedures, which have a strong impact on human health (Chester and Horvath, 2009). Local pollutants are a signicant concern in China, as many major Chinese cities suffer from
PM2.5 concentration much higher above World Health Organization standards (Tan, 2013). The small particles generated from
burning fossil fuels contribute to signicant number of fatal respiratory diseases and premature deaths (Winter, 2013).
While the aviation industry continually seeks improvements in
fuel efciency, this share is expected to increase as other transport
modes shift away from carbon-based fuels. Such an action will further increase the pressure on the aviation sector to reduce GHG
emissions (Yang et al., 2009). Additionally, aviation in the
European Union is now included in emissions trading, effectively
increasing the cost of fuel; as environmental concern intensies,
so does the threat of fuel price increases from a mix of market
forces and environmental charges (Scheelhaase et al., 2010).

Please cite this article in press as: Ryerson, M.S., Ge, X. The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.03.009

M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Fig. 1. Fuel prices in China and the US. Source: IndexMundi Data and National Development and Reform Commission Data.

The severity of environmental issues in aviation prompted action from the Chinese government and the aviation industry. The
CAAC identied reducing emissions as the major environmental
goal for the aviation industry in their Twelfth Five-Year Plan covering the years 20112015. The CAAC requires that airlines utilize
energy efcient technologies to reduce fuel consumption in every
stage. The recommended technologies include winglets on aircraft,
upgraded aircraft engines, and replacing Auxiliary Power Units
(APUs), which run on fuel, with ground devices that run on electricity (CAAC, 2011). CAAC also requires airports to be constructed
and operated with new materials and renewable energy to mitigate environmental pollution. To help airlines and airports adopt
CAAC-recommended technologies, the CAAC document titled
CAAC Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Funding Program Guidelines (CAAC, 2013) outlines environmental initiatives
supported by a CAAC funding program. In 2012, 254 projects received 300 million yuan (approximately 49 million US dollars
assuming a conversion factor of 6.12 yuan/1 USD) to support their
projects (Wang, 2013). These projects will lead to reductions in
fuel consumption and environmental emissions, yet the gains are
expected to be modest compared with changes in aircraft types,
conrmed empirically by Ryerson and Hansen (2013). In addition,
Ryerson et al. (2012) nd that the benet pool for surface emissions can be overestimated because airlines have already streamlined their surface operation, resulting in surface-based
initiatives with smaller potentials than expected.
The focus on environmental pollutants brings fuel savings to the
forefront of future CAS planning. However, despite the signicant
potential of turboprops to reduce fuel consumption and to manage
fuel cost uctuations, the use of turboprops for short-haul aviation
travel is not included in the CAAC guidelines nor is investment in
low-emission aircraft supported by the CAAC funding. Towards
informing guidelines on aircraft investments in addition to
modifying operations, we seek to understand the potential role of
turboprops in the CAS in the present aviation network and in the
future planned aviation network. We are interested in the spatial
distribution of networks best served by turboprops as well as the
potential benet of turboprops, towards providing guidelines for
including turboprops in a state-based energy conservation plan.
To do so, we collect information on existing and future short-haul
air travel in China. We investigate statistics and spatial patterns to
understand Chinese short-haul, lower density aviation today. The
spatial analysis and supporting empirical models are used to
estimate the gains and losses from transitioning the existing
regional jet eet with a eet of turboprops. Finally, we build a
statistical model to predict where turboprops could and will be

used in an expanded aviation market, towards understanding their

spatial distribution in the future CAS.
2. Data collection
To support our analysis, we collect Chinese airport data and
scheduled ight data as well as travel time and fuel consumption
data related to regional jets and turboprops.
2.1. OpenFlights airport database 2012
We collect latitudes and longitudes for 181 Chinese airports
from OpenFlights (2012), an open source resource for airport locational data. The data includes airport names, city names, country
names, International Air Transport Association (IATA)/Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) codes, and latitudes and longitudes for
all the airports.
2.2. Scheduled ight data
All intra-China scheduled arrival and departure operations for
July 18, 2013 (the third Thursday of the month, a common aviation
planning day) are collected from masFlight, an aviation data company. This dataset includes, among a host of variables, origin, destination, aircraft type, number of seats per operation, and market
carrier for each ight.
2.3. Aircraft travel time
Towards estimating travel time, we use the average cruise
speed of turboprops (320 mile/h) and regional jets (530 mile/h)
found empirically in the scheduled ight data. Throughout the
analysis we will be most interested in the relative travel times
rather than the absolute travel times; for this reason, we use the
average cruise speeds and not traditional models of block time.
This also avoids any distortions to block time because of airport
congestion or airline practices.
2.4. Fuel consumption data and model
To capture fuel consumption for the different aircraft types, we
utilize two fuel consumption models estimated by Ryerson (2010).
The fuel consumption models are a function of the two variables
which are the key drivers of fuel consumption (F), distance and
seats. The estimated models for turboprops and jets are shown in

Please cite this article in press as: Ryerson, M.S., Ge, X. The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

(1), with all coefcients signicant at the 1% level. The data utilized
in the model is based on US fuel consumption from the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics, due to data availability. While the model
formulation is simple, Ryerson and Hansen (2013) nd that models
of aviation cost can be well captured by simple models that assume
a Leontief production process (the inputs are entered in xed proportions) compared with more complex models allowing for input
interaction. As fuel is a large component of operating cost, we generalize this result to the fuel consumption models.

F tp 0:495  distance 2:030  seats

F rj 2:392  distance 3:488  seats

It is clear from the relative values of the coefcients in (1) that

turboprops burn less fuel per seat and per mile compared with jet
aircraft.

3. Turboprops and the current CAS network

In this section we explore the role of turboprops in the current
Chinese aviation network. We begin by exploring the short-haul
Chinese air transportation network.
3.1. Spatial trends for short-haul aviation
We begin by exploring the ows of regional jets and turboprops
based on our scheduled ight data. We create geodetic two-point
line features from an array of start and end points to visualize
the ight routes (matching the OpenFlights airport dataset with
the scheduled ight data) between origins and destinations in ArcMap 10. The resulting owlines are color-coded1 according to the
two aircraft types. We begin with Fig. 2 which includes all 655 ights
on regional jets and 70 on turboprops.
This map shows the dominance of regional jets over turboprops
in the Chinese short haul aviation market. Regional jets knit
eastern China together, connecting smaller cities with hubs and
providing direct service between secondary cities. They are
particularly prevalent in Western China. The top ve regional jet
hubs with the largest number of feeder routes are Urumqi
(Northwestern China), Xian (Central China), Hohhot (North Central
China), Tianjin (Northeast China), and Guangzhou (Southeast
China). Overall, there are seven airlines operating 655 ights on
regional jets including two of the major Chinese carriers, China
Southern Airlines (CZ) and China Eastern Airlines (MU), along with
the regional carriers Shandong Airlines (SC), Tianjin Airlines (GS),
Shanghai Airlines (FM), China Express Airlines (G5) and Northeast
Airlines (NS).
Compared with regional jet service, turboprops exhibit more
spatial concentration and a narrow range of distances. Turboprops
are concentrated in Northeast China, as well as the intersection of
North China, Northwest China, and South Central China. The turboprop ights in Northeast China are operated by Okay Airways. The
main hub of Okay Airways is Tianjin Binhai International Airport in
North China. Okay Airways does not operate turboprops from the
hub, but rather operates turboprops in Northeast China from Harbin with seven feeder routes into nearby second-tier cities. The
operator of turboprop ights in Central China is Joy Air, a subsidiary of China Eastern Airlines. The turboprop network in central
China consists of several hubs with a few feeder routes. The current
turboprop hubs include Xian (ve feeder routes), Taiyuan (four
feeder routes), and Zhengzhou (four feeder routes). The three hubs
are also inter-connected by turboprops. While there are multiple
1
For interpretation of color in Figs. 2 and 5, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.

operators of turboprops, all the turboprops in China are Xian

MA-60 manufactured by Xian Aircraft Industrial Corporation.
Fig. 2 illustrates that turboprop ights serve a narrow range of
very short-haul ights while regional jets serve both very short
haul ights and longer haul ights (such as between Western
and Central China). To explore the difference in catchment areas
of the aircraft types in the current Chinese network, we identity
the key hubs of turboprops and regional jets and calculate the
75th and maximum distance ight from that hub. Table 1 includes
results for both turboprops and regional jets; because of the large
number of regional jet routes, the top ve hubs based on the number of feeder routes are displayed. The ranges of turboprops routes
are signicantly less those of regional jets. Generalizing the 75th
percentile and the maximum distance turboprop ights from each
turboprop hub into catchment areas (Fig. 3), we see that much of
Northeastern and Eastern China falls in the catchment area of the
turboprop hubs.
3.2. Regional jet and turboprop trade space in the existing CAS
Fig. 3 indicates turboprops could be more widely deployed. Towards exploring their potential, we estimate the benets and costs
of the system if regional jet routes were replaced with turboprops.
3.2.1. Distance-based aircraft replacement
We begin by spatially depicting regional jet routes that could
be replaced by turboprops. Fig. 4 shows the regional jet routes
that would be replaced if we limited the replacement to ights
of a distance less than the 25th percentile of regional jet ight
distances across the network ((a) 266 miles); the 50th percentile
((b) 402); the 75th percentile ((c) 576); and all ights ((d)
1308 miles). The small gap between the 50th and 75th percentile
of regional jet ight distances indicates that there are many
ights in the under 600-mile category for regional jets. The
75th percentile of ight distances for regional jets, 600 miles, is
well within the technical range of the MA-60 turboprop, but the
maximum distance regional jet route is not. We see from
Fig. 4a that if our strategy is to place turboprops on the shortest
regional jet ight routes rst, the ights will be spatially distributed across the country. Within this spatial distribution we see
many hubs emerge with connections less than 266 miles, particularly in the Northwest, the Southeast, and the Northeast. As
we increase the distance threshold for replacement, we see these
hubs increase in intensity as far as the number of connections to
be served by turboprops. This indicates that the deployment of
turboprops might be well suited to be a state-led strategy targeted at airlines, allowing them to redene their hub connections
with lower emissions turboprops.
3.2.2. Fuel and time trade-offs
Certainly, replacing regional jet operations with turboprops
would come at a cost: ight times would increase (increasing the
cost faced by passengers) while fuel consumed by each ight
would decrease. To estimate this trade-off we monetize time and
fuel to explore the distance-fuel price trade space between regional
jets and turboprops. The monetization of fuel is straightforward, as
fuel price is published and shown in Fig. 1. The monetization of
time requires a Value of Time (VoT) metric. VoT in transportation
is typically estimated through discrete choice models that capture
how a decision maker trades time, cost, and other attributes. VoT is
then the marginal rate of substitution between the time and cost
inputs.
Estimates of VoT exist in the US-based air traveler literature.
Using a combination of revealed and stated preference surveys
for air transportation users, Adler et al. (2005) use a mixed logit
model to estimate the value of ying time, schedule delay, and

Please cite this article in press as: Ryerson, M.S., Ge, X. The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Fig. 2. Regional ight connections in China. Source: masFlight.

Table 1
Statistics of turboprop and regional jet ight connections in China. Source: masFlight Data.
Hub

Airport code

Turboprops
Harbin
Xian
Taiyuan
Zhengzhou
Dalian
Hefei

HRB
XIY
TYN
CGO
DLC
HFE

Regional jets
Urumqi
Xian
Hohhot
Tianjin
Guangzhou

URC
XIY
HET
TSN
CAN

Number of feeder routes

Radius 75th percentile (miles)

Radius maximum (miles)

Region

7
5
4
4
3
3

282
312
276.5
275
127
275

342
313
313
289
192
275

Northeast China
Northwest China
North China
South Central China
Northeast China
East China

56
32
29
28
22

408
690.5
564
574
709

1308
1308
1255
1386
1112

Northwest China
Northwest China
North China
North China
Southern Central China

on-time performance assuming all non-xed parameters are normally distributed. Adler nds that the value of time for in-vehicle
time for a business traveler is $69.70/h and for a leisure traveler
it is $31.20/h. Ball et al. (2010) use a value of time of $37.6/h for a
study of US aviation delay for the Federal Aviation Administration.
There is less understanding of VoT in developing countries. In
presenting a methodology to estimate VoT for developing countries, Walker et al. (2010), in a case study of commute mode in
Chengdu, China, notes the dearth of estimates of VoT for Chinese
travel. The authors estimate the VoT for local commute travel to
be 12 yuan/h (which is about 80% of the average income rate,
and about $2.00). In a study using survey data from transportation
users in Shanghai in 2001, Liu (2006) nds the value of In-vehicle
time and Out-of-vehicle time to be 15.1 yuan/h and 20.2 yuan/

h, respectively (with the mean wage across the sample at

21.7 yuan/h). These values are consistent across the two studies,
however, the sample population is of local travelers and not air
travelers, who are likely to have higher values of time.
Towards gaining more insight into Chinese VoTs, we explore
spatial and temporal trends in the wage rate. In 2011, the per
capita personal income in China was $3560, and Shanghai had
the maximum average income for a province at $6622.90 (National
Bureau of Statistics of China, 2013). Comparatively the average
income in the US was $41,560 in 2011 (University of New Mexico,
2013). If the US VoT for air travelers is $37.60/h, we can estimate
that a commensurate VoT for China based on the wage rate is
$3.22/h on average and $6.00/h for the maximum income province
of Shanghai. There is, however, a signicant wage gap in China as

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Fig. 3. Turboprop ight connections in China and catchment areas. Source: masFlight.

well as rapid income growth. While personal income in the US increased 32% from 2002 to 2011, per capita personal discretionary
income in China increased 183% during the same time period. From
2002 to 2011, the standard deviation of per capita annual discretionary income by province in China also increased from $328.94
to $876.27, reecting an expanding income disparity between regions in China. In 2011, the highest average annual discretionary
income by province was $5920 in Shanghai on the east coast,
and the lowest was $2449.1 in Gansu in the west inland, highlighting the spatial differences in economic conditions.
In short, establishing a VoT that is both credible and inclusive is
a challenge, particularly in China. For this reason, we design a metric titled the break-even VoT. This is the VoT for which the fuel savings and increased travel time incurred if a turboprop is used in
place of a regional jet are equal. The break-even VoT indicates
the maximum VoT for which turboprops are still an economically
viable option. In short, if VoT for Chinese travelers is greater than
the calculated metric, regional jet operations should not be redaq , is formulated
placed with turboprops. The metric, termed VoT
as a function of the fuel consumption and travel time of a ight.

crj
c
tq
i a F i  F i Ii q
daq
VoT
P d
drj
tq
i TT i  TT i I i q

ck
F i is the estimated fuel consumed in gallons for ight i on aircraft k
(turboprop, regional jet 3 k) using the equations estimated in (1)
d
and the scheduled ight data. TT ki is the estimated travel time for
ight i on aircraft k estimated using the average cruise speed for aircraft type k and the travel distance for ight i in the scheduled ight

data. a is the price of fuel in $/gallon, to be considered parametrically from $3.00/gallon to $5.00/gallon, consistent with recent historical Chinese jet fuel prices. Ii(p) is an indicator function equal
to 1 if the distance of ight i is less than the p-percentile distance
across all ights.
The aircraft replacement algorithm is done in two ways. First,
c
we do a seat by seat replacement such that we estimate F ki 8 k as
a function of the number of seats for ight i (the number of seats
per ight is reported in the scheduled data). By assuming aircraft
size is continuous we allow for the notion of direct aircraft size
replacement. Second, we assume all turboprops have 50 seats,
and, if ight i is on a regional jet with more than 50 seats, we replace it with two turboprops. This is a conservative estimate that
provides an upper bound (or, a lower bound break-even VoT) for
analysis.
daq presented in Table 2 represents the value of
The quantity VoT
the savings, in $/h-seat, from switching ights of a distance less than
the p-th percentile of all ights from regional jets to turboprops at fuel
daq > VoT, where VoT
price a. A switch to turboprops is justied if VoT
is the average value of passenger time for intra-China aviation. When
daq > VoT, the savings per passenger from switching to turboprops
VoT
is more than the value of passenger value of time. Overall, we nd that
the break-even VoTs are at the upper bound of US VoTs or greater. A
switch to turboprops is easily justied for all ight distances covered
by regional jets, offering a signicant potential to save fuel. We note
daq decreases with increasing q, as it is less attractive to switch
that VoT
daq increases
a regional jet with a turboprop over longer distances. VoT
with fuel price, as regional jets are less fuel efcient than turboprops.

Please cite this article in press as: Ryerson, M.S., Ge, X. The role of turboprops in Chinas growing aviation system. J. Transp. Geogr. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/
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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Fig. 4. (ad) Candidate regional jet routes for replacement.

Table 2
Break-even value of time.
Fuel price ($/gal)

Distance percentile
25%
50%
75%
100%

Seat-by-seat replacement ($/h)

Full aircraft replacement ($/h)

3.00

4.00

5.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

77.4
71.4
67.9
64.2

103.2
95.2
90.5
85.6

129.1
119.0
113.1
107.0

66.3
58.2
53.4
48.6

88.4
77.6
71.2
64.8

110.5
97.0
89.0
81.1

4. Future of aviation in China

Newly emerging airports and routes provide a unique opportunity to expand the short-haul aviation network. We consider the
potential for turboprops to play a role in an expanded network
with these newly emerging markets. Utilizing CAAC development
plans, we explore the spatial patterns of the future CAS and, using
a binary logit model, predict the market share of turboprops on the
future routes.
4.1. Emerging hubs and spokes
The CAAC plans to expand the number of airports from 175 in
2010 to 244 in 2020 with the goal of locating 80% of urban and

suburban areas within 100 km of aviation service, as detailed in

their National Aviation Network Plan for 2020 and a series of FiveYear Plans (CAAC, 2011). This expansion comes with an increase
in annual passenger trafc from 268 million to 450 million and an
increase in aviation mode share from 14.5% to 16% from 2011 to
2015. This plan species focus regions and cities for constructing
new airports as well as expanding existing airports and establishing
air connections between hubs and spokes. The focus regions and cities are selected based on economic goals such as international or regional economic cooperation, economic revitalization, and tourism
development. The Plan also emphasizes new route connections,
particularly for Western provinces, where surface transportation
is inconvenient due to geographic characteristics. Fig. 5 shows the
expected emerging hubs and spokes as discussed in the Twelfth

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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Fig. 5. Emerging airport hubs and spokes. Source: masFlight and CAAC.

Five-Year Plan. The current turboprop and regional jet networks are
also placed on the map to show existing connections.
The CAAC plans to accelerate the growth of major regional airport hubs such as Tianjin, Changsha, and Shenzhen, which are represented with the dark blue dots in Fig. 5 map. Also, CAAC plans to
reinforce the role played by secondary hubs such as Changchun,
Hohhot, and Lhasa. These airports have a lower demand than the
regional hubs yet larger than the spoke airports. Thirdly, several
spoke airports such as Daqing, Huaian, and Kashi are highlighted
by CAAC for improvement. Moreover, CAAC is identifying cities
without airports and pursing airport construction in these cities.
Two examples are Jiuhuashan and Daocheng, two cities with newly
constructed airports as of the fall of 2013. These new airports serve
as spokes in an airline network and feed nearby hubs. Both the
existing spoke airports highlighted by CAAC and the new airports
are represented with triangles as emerging spoke airports on the
map in Fig. 5. Table 3 documents the focus of the CAAC plan in detail with a focus on expansions that could introduce new short haul
travel and highlights the rationale behind the airport developments and expansions (CAAC, 2011).
4.2. Future turboprop network
Section 3 established that turboprops could be a viable replacement for regional jets across the entire network when trading fuel
costs for time costs. However, we know from the existing network
that the use of regional jets is signicantly more prevalent than
turboprops. In the following section, we estimate the potential
for turboprops in the future network, based on the underlying

choice structure of short-haul aircraft among Chinese carriers. To

this end, we develop a binary logit model to predict the likelihood
of turboprop adoption (or, said another way, the mode share of turboprops) on each future route. The binary logit model allows for
the prediction of probabilities from a choice set of two, in our case,
k 2 K  (regional jets and turboprops, or rj and tp). In doing so we
build on numerous aviation system studies employing discrete
choice models to predict airline and air passenger behavior
(see, for example, Adler et al., 2005; Wei and Hansen, 2005; Loo,
2008; Hsiao and Hansen, 2011).
For each future route, we predict the probability that it is
served with aircraft type k as a function of attributes of each aircraft type and attributes of the route. To do so, we build a model
to explain aircraft choice on individual routes as a function of aircraft and route characteristics. The characteristics include the
time it takes to traverse each route on both aircraft types and
the population density of the origin and destination of a route.
We utilize the scheduled ight dataset for our study day and estimate the travel time on both possible aircraft types for each ight
using the method outlined in Section 2.3. We next determine the
urban density of each airport. These density categories include:
High (H) for airports serving cities with an urban population
greater than 500,000 persons; Medium (M) for airports serving
cities with an urban population between 200,000 and 500,000;
and Small (S) for those with an urban population of less than
200,000 people. Each route serves two cities, and we dene six
binary variables representing the density of the origin and destination (without dening the directionality of the ight): LL, MM,
LM, LH, MH, and HH.

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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Table 3
Network developments and expansions planned by CAAC in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. Source: CAAC.
Airport
Cluster

Major regional hubs

Secondary hubs

Spoke airports
New spoke airports
highlighted by CAAC

Related economic goals

Northern
China

Harbin, Shenyang, Dalian, Tianjin

Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan,
Hohhot, Changchun

Mohe, Daqing,
Erenhot

 Northeast Asia economic cooperation

(esp. Harbin)
 Revitalization of Northeast China
industrial region (esp. Shengyang)
 Strategic development of Binhai New
Area in Tianjin

Eastern
China

Shanghai Hongqiao, Hangzhou,

Nanjing, Xiamen, Qingdao

Jinan, Fuzhou, Nanchang, Huaian

Hefei

Jiuhuashan (opened in  Trade with Japan and Korea

July 2013)
 Shandong Peninsula Marine Economic
Development Zone
 Connection to Taiwan

South
Central
China

Shenzhen, Wuhan, Zhengzhou,

Changsha, Nanning, Haikou

Guilin, Sanya

Hengyang (under
construction)

Baise

Fuyuan (under
construction)

 Pan-Pearl River Delta Area economic

integration
 Rise of Central China Plan (esp. Wuhan
and Zhengzhou)
 Tourism in Sanya and Guilin

Southwest
China

Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming

Lhasa, Guiyang

Tengchong

Daocheng (opened in
September 2013)

 ASEANChina Free Trade Area (ACFTA)

 Connection to South Asia and Southeast
Asia (esp. Kunming)
 Tourism to minority ethnic groups
regions

Northwest
China

Xian, Urumqi

Lanzhou, Yinchuan,
Xining

Korla, Kashi, Yushu

The binary logit model (3) predicts the probability that a route
is served with aircraft type k. This probability is a function of the
utility of the route being served by both aircraft types k. The utility
of utilizing aircraft type k on a route, Vk, is a unitless measure of
attractiveness or satisfaction. We predict the coefcients on the
utility models in (4) such that we can gain insights into how the
relative utility of the two aircraft types is affected by route and aircraft characteristics. The logit model predicts the mode share of
aircraft type k by taking the ratio of the exponent of deterministic
utility of aircraft type k to the sum of the exponents of the deterministic utilities of serving a route with either aircraft type.

eV k
Pk P
Vj
j2K e
V k btt ttk Ik rj

3
X
bd Dd

P(k) is the probability that, for a single ight on aircraft k, k 2 K,

Vk > Vj "j. Vk is the deterministic utility function for aircraft k. ttk
is the travel time on aircraft k. Dd is a binary variable designating
the density measure for the route, where d 2 (LL, MM, LM, LH,

Table 4
Binary logit estimation.

Parameter

Estimate

t Value

Parameter estimates
Travel time
Low density/low density
Low density/medium density
Low density/high density
Medium density/medium density
Medium density/high density

0.0904***
2.0615**
0.3327
1.1673**
0.6095
1.0125*

5.46
1.97
0.29
2.07
0.52
1.66

Estimates are signicant at the 10% level.

Estimates are signicant at the 5% level.
***
Estimates are signicant at the 1% level.
**

Shihezi (under
construction)

 Trade between China and Central Asia

(esp. Urumqi)
 Tourism to minority ethnic groups
regions

MH). HH is the base case. Ik(rj) is an indicator function which is 1

if the observation is for a regional jet and 0 otherwise.
Table 4 contains the estimation results. The coefcient of travel
time is negative as expected, and the estimate is signicant. The
interpretation is that increased travel time decreases the utility
of a particularly aircraft type. The density variables enter into the
regional jet utility function, with a route serving two high density
airports as the base case. The interpretation is that, for example,
the utility of using a regional jet for travel between airports in
low density regions is less than the utility of using turboprops,
when compared with the utility of using regional jets for travel
between high density regions. We see that, if travel time were
equal, the utility of turboprops is greater than that for regional jets
for all density pairings; because travel time between these two
modes is never equal, the density xed effects are picking up the
preference for turboprops that is unexplained by the travel time
variable. The density pairings with signicant coefcient
estimates, again, all negative, are LL, LH, and MH, showcasing that
turboprops have a higher utility than regional jets when serving at
least one region of low density.
Using the logit model estimates in Table 4, we predict the probability turboprops will be utilized for potential new routes between new and emerging airports in China. First, we establish
potential new routes between spokes and hubs by linking the
emerging spokes to emerging hubs which are shown on the map
in Fig. 4; these new routes are shown in Table 5. We link spokes
to the nearest hubs and also link airports that are grounded in
the economic goals of the CAAC. For example, we establish a direct
connection between Guilin and Hengyang, the second largest city
of Hunan Province, to facilitate tourism development in Guilin
which is a stated goal of the CAAC. As another example, Jiuhuashan, home to a new airport opened in July 2013, is linked to the
nearby regional hub Wuhan so as to bring new investments and
travelers from Wuhan to stimulate economic development in the
Anhui Province. Currently there are ights from Jiuhuashan to

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10

M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

Table 5
Predicted turboprop mode shares for the future CAS network.
Spoke

Hub

Distance
(miles)

Probability
Turboprop (%)

Shihezi
Daqing
Baise
Huaian
Huaian
Shihezi
Huaian
Baise
Hengyang
Jiuhuashan
Daqing
Jiuhuashan
Huaian
Daocheng
Baise
Hengyang
Hengyang
Huaian

Urumqi
Harbin
Nanning
Nanjing
Hefei
Korla
Qingdao
Guiyang
Guilin
Wuhan
Changchun
Shanghai
Jinan
Chengdu
Kunming
Wuhan
Shenzhen
Zhengzhou

71
88
108
139
174
179
185
194
195
206
210
218
237
249
279
285
302
308

38.2
35.5
32.5
28.0
23
22.9
22.2
21.1
21.0
19.8
19.4
18.6
16.7
15.6
13.1
12.6
11.4
11

Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, and the new airport allows growth
in short-haul markets. We next estimate the travel time on a turboprop and on a regional jet for these routes based on their orthodromic distance (using the average cruise speeds established in
Section 2) and categorize the airports based on their density. The
predicted mode shares of turboprops are shown in Table 5, for links
with more than a 10% mode share.
The result of the prediction is not absolute turboprop adoption
vs. non-adoption, but rather a metric like mode share for
turboprops. For example, if an airline is to operate ve ights per
day between Shihezi and Urumqi, it is likely that two of those

ights will be on turboprops. The percentages are all less than

50%, which is expected because the parameters are estimated on
realized ight schedule data which includes many more regional
jets than turboprops. What we do see is that the percentages are
rather high considering the low use of turboprops in China today.
As expected, the shorter distance ights have a higher percent
mode share of turboprops. To look at the spatial location of these
ights we look at Fig. 6, which shows the links based on the
turboprop mode share. We see that the spatial distribution of
turboprops spans the country, with links emerging in Western,
Southern, and Northestern China. Because of their ability to serve
shorter distance ights and a wide variety of density pairs, the
strategy for turboprop deployment is likely best to be a national
strategy instead of an airline-based or hub-based strategy. Fig. 6
also clearly shows that some routes have better potential for
turboprop operations, such as the BaiseNanning connection
(probability: 32.5%), Huaian-Nanjing connection (28.0%), and
ShiheziKorla connection (22.9%). Most of the spoke airports
highlighted by CAAC, especially Huaian and Baise, prove to be
desirable candidates for operation of turboprops.
Among the highlighted routes in Fig. 6, only two routes (ShanghaiJiuhuashan, ChengduDaocheng) have already established direct ights. Some other routes studied are connected indirectly
by two legs, and the rest have no ight connection yet. The existing
direct ight from Chengdu to Daocheng is currently operated with
Airbus 319 at 6:55 am, and the fare is over 1500 yuan (USD245) for
a single trip. The indirect ight connections also charge high fares,
such as the ones connecting Baise and Guiyang or Huaian and
Jinan. Overall, the fares are generally higher along these assessed
routes because of the adoption of narrow-body jets or even
wide-body jets on routes that have lower demand. The
incompatibility between chosen aircraft and market demand

Fig. 6. Turboprop connections in the future CAS network.

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M.S. Ryerson, X. Ge / Journal of Transport Geography xxx (2014) xxxxxx

compels the airlines to schedule for low frequency or arrange inefcient indirect connections. Adoption of turboprops along these
routes will enable the airlines to reduce operating cost and increase frequency of their services to provide exibility for passengers and induce more demand in these markets.
It is unlikely that the narrow-body jets or wide-body jets are
utilized because of cargo loads, and it is also unlikely that the assessed routes will carry heavy cargo trafc in the near term.
Although Chengdu and Zhengzhou are rising as major freight markets with manufacturing being relocated from the coastal areas to
central and western China, most of the goods manufactured in
these areas are intended for export rather than domestic consumption (CAPA, 2013). Also, since most assessed routes are short- and
medium-distance connections which are more time-denite compared to long-distance connections, freight markets along these
routes are already dominated by surface transportation because
of the lower costs. In the next ve years, apart from large-scale
expansion and addition of airports, China also has plans to construct more than 40,000 km of express rail lines and more than
85,000 km of highway to complete the surface transport network.
Such efforts would further divert air cargo trafc in these markets
to ground transport modes, as predicted in the World Air Cargo
Forecast (Boeing, 2012). Therefore, it is foreseeable that air trafc
along these assessed routes would largely cater towards passenger
services.
Among the routes that have solid potential for turboprop operations, the routes to Jiuhuashan, Guilin, Kunming, and Daocheng
are likely to serve a larger share of leisure travelers than average
because all the four cities are supported by robust tourism industry. Routes to Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Qingdao would have a larger
portion of business travelers on board than average because these
cities are regional economic and trade centers. Since business and
leisure passengers value time differently, it is foreseeable that the
business travelers with relatively larger VoT compared with the
break-even VoT would choose services provided by other types
of aircraft along these routes, while leisure travelers and business
travelers with lower VoT would use turboprop services. Harnessing
the heterogeneity across passengers consumes fewer resources
while still providing passenger service.
5. Conclusion
In this study we focus on a segment of the Chinese aviation system that is on the precipice of expansion: the short-haul aviation
system. Our study motivates the inclusion of turboprops in the
state-led initiatives to support aviation sustainability. In dening
new metrics for analysis, such as the break-even VoT, and in
exploring the spatial patterns of the current and future short-haul
CAS, we nd a large role for turboprops in the CAS. More specically, we nd that this role is not conned to one area of the country, but rather is dispersed. This is true for both the replacement of
regional jets by turboprops and the deployment of turboprops on
emerging routes. After years of growing the aviation system in
the east, the CAAC has made Western and Southern China a priority. Turboprops could serve these areas with lower fuel costs and
reduced environmental impact at a high enough level to well balance the increase in travel time for passengers. Providing funds
through the CAAC sustainability fund for the adoption of turboprops could both support emerging aviation markets in China
and promote environmental sustainability.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank masFlight for providing the
scheduled ight data for analysis.

11

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