(Yicai Global) March 21 -- Ezhou Huahu Airport, backed by Chinese courier giant SF Holding and the Hubei provincial government, has completed test flights as China and Asia’s first dedicated air freight hub gets ready to open for trial operations in June.

A Boeing 757-200 cargo plane successfully took off from and landed at the airport in Ezhou, central Hubei province on March 19, Securities Times reported yesterday.

Costing CNY32.1 billion (USD5 billion), the hub is expected to have an annual cargo throughput of 2.45 million tons by 2025. It will fly 10 international routes and 50 domestic ones. The economic centers of the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta are all within a one-and-half-hour flight away.

Hubei International Logistics Airport, which is 46 percent owned by a unit of SF Holding, is in charge of the construction and operation of the airport. It will be only the fourth such airport worldwide and will focus on passenger travel during the day and cargo transport at night.

Nearly half of all China’s domestic air freight currently runs through three airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. And international cargo is dominated by five airports in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, central Henan province, which account for 90 percent of turnover.

Editor: Kim Taylor