On the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday, while the cold wave is still affecting northern China, the tropical island of Hainan is warm as summer. This is the best time of the year in Hainan, with blue sea and blue sky and pleasant scenery.

Coinciding with the "longest Spring Festival Golden Week in history", millions of tourists have flocked to Hainan to enjoy the coconut breeze, sea charm, sun and sand.

On February 4, tourists played in the water in the tourist area of Wuzhizhou Island, Sanya City, Hainan Province, Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhao Yingquan

However, when everyone is still immersed in the festive atmosphere, some tourists have found that the price of return air tickets from Hainan continues to rise, and some routes even have a "hard to find" situation.

"When I went, it was more than 1,000, and the return ticket was close to 20,000, and it was difficult to find a ticket for economy class. More netizens supported on social platforms, suggesting buying flights from Sanya to Seoul, South Korea, because many flights on this route will transfer in Beijing and Shanghai, and terminate the journey directly when transferring, even if it is business class, the ticket price is only about 4,000 yuan.

Not only are air tickets sold out and prices are high, but many passengers who are preparing to leave the island for a self-driving trip in Hainan have also encountered the problem of "hard to find" return ferry tickets. On the Internet, many new energy vehicle owners reported that they could not grab tickets to get out of the island, and some people had to take all their annual leave and postpone the return time for a few days.

As an international tourist island, Hainan is one of the most popular destinations for Spring Festival tourism in China. According to the Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports, the passenger flow in Hainan during the Spring Festival in 2024 will increase significantly, with an overall year-on-year increase of more than 30%.

Compared with the relatively loose outbound time, the release of travel demand is not so concentrated, and the return window is generally more compact. The Hainan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism said that Hainan has reached the peak of passenger flow out of the island on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, and it is expected that the peak passenger flow will continue until about the tenth day of the Lunar New Year.

On February 15, Feng Fei, Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee, went to Haikou Meilan International Airport and Xinhaigang to investigate the smooth work of the Spring Festival transportation again. In the survey, Feng Fei pointed out that the Spring Festival transportation is a matter of concern to thousands of households, and it is also an important embodiment of the business environment of the Hainan Free Trade Port. Airports, stations, ports and other key places should further enhance the awareness and service level of window services, and do a good job of all kinds of warm-hearted services in the urgency of the masses. It is necessary to strengthen online and offline linkage, strengthen the release of information and public opinion guidance for the Spring Festival, face up to problems, respond to the concerns of the masses in a timely manner, go all out to create a safe, convenient and warm travel environment, and do everything possible to ensure the safe and smooth return of passengers.

On February 15, Feng Fei, secretary of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee, investigated the Spring Festival transportation guarantee work Hainan Daily

In order to alleviate the tight capacity, the competent authorities of Hainan's transportation and tourism industry have coordinated with major airlines to increase capacity and switch to wide-body aircraft several times before the holiday. On February 16, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that in order to ensure the smooth travel of passengers during the Spring Festival travel period, the Civil Aviation Administration of China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and Capital Airlines had approved the plan of arranging 34 overtime flights per day on popular routes involving Haikou during the Spring Festival travel period, and quickly restored the time supply, arranging an average of 13 new flights per day for Air China, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, and at the same time arranging for China Eastern Airlines to temporarily add 10 new flights per day to and from Boao to further meet the needs of passengers returning from the Spring Festival.

In terms of vehicles leaving the island, in order to solve the problem of tight ticket supply during the peak of the return trip out of the island, Haikou City organized Xinhaigang and Xiuying Port to further optimize the shipping capacity, and dynamically increased the sales of small car (fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles) tickets for Xinhaigang and Xiuying Port in the next 24 hours according to the new ship capacity. At present, the "three ports" are operating at full capacity.

Why is it difficult for Hainan to get out of the island again during this year's Spring Festival? Can the relevant local evacuation safeguard measures allow passengers to return smoothly as soon as possible? When will the Qiongzhou Strait, which is no more than 20 kilometers narrow, cease to be a bottleneck restricting Hainan's external traffic?

Return air tickets have skyrocketed to fallen

Sanya is a popular destination for the Spring Festival in the past years, and air ticket prices are much higher than usual during the peak Spring Festival season. However, it is not uncommon for fares to skyrocket and sell out of economy class this year.

According to the new Hainan client, the passenger flow in Hainan during the Spring Festival in 2024 will increase significantly, with an overall year-on-year increase of more than 30%. Affected by the relationship between market supply and demand, air tickets during the peak passenger flow period are relatively tight, and air tickets to major domestic destination cities before the seventh day of the Lunar New Year have been basically sold out, and the remaining few air tickets are mainly high-class air tickets. According to the feedback from the airlines, the ticket price of some flights is about 10,000 yuan, mainly business class.

In addition to the increase in tourist volume, some seats at Sanya Phoenix Airport are being repaired, which has also led to a decrease in aircraft reception capacity for the sake of safe flight.

According to altitude news reports, the construction of the apron expansion project on the south side of the international corridor of Sanya Phoenix Airport will start on June 6, 2023, and due to the impact of the non-stop construction of the project, Sanya Phoenix Airport has closed the B5 taxiway, the D taxiway west of the 108 stands, and the 8 near the bridge of 101-108. On January 29, the D taxiway and B5 taxiway area of the south side of the international corridor of Sanya Phoenix International Airport (hereinafter referred to as "Sanya Phoenix Airport"), a subsidiary of Hainan Airport Co., Ltd., were successfully completed and resumed operation.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China told the media that on February 15, combined with the progress of the construction of 8 parking stands completed in stages at Sanya Airport, it insisted on safety first, and urgently organized and guided the Central and Southern Regional Administration to evaluate the airport's ground and air traffic control support capabilities and restore the supply at all times.

A person from a relevant online travel platform told The Paper on February 16 that the number of flights on Hainan Island in the past few days was very low, and the average price paid was not so high, indicating that there was not so much demand for temporary ticket purchases, and you could also get economy class tickets with normal prices. In fact, there are still a small number of passengers who are close to departure and are facing the dilemma of "soaring air ticket prices", and most of them have planned their itinerary in advance and bought round-trip tickets together.

According to the analysis of tourism industry insiders, if you want to return smoothly on the premise of saving money, there are several solutions. The first is to choose to take the high-speed rail in transit or near the destination. The second is to travel off-peak, return early or postpone the return after the holiday. Secondly, airlines also advise travelers who have not purchased tickets in advance to avoid direct flights from Sanya's popular cities, and in most cases, it is more feasible to fly from Haikou and Boao than directly from Sanya.

The Hainan Provincial Department of Transportation said that in view of the fact that there are more tourists in Haitang Bay in Sanya who need to take a car to Haikou Meilan, Sanya Phoenix, and Qionghai Boao Airport to return from the island, it has timely guided and coordinated the Sanya Branch of Haiqi Transportation Group to urgently open the customized passenger dedicated line from the Sanya Haitang District Tourist Distribution Center to Haikou Meilan, Sanya Phoenix, Qionghai Boao and other three airports, open the ticket sales channels of "Haiqi e-line" and "Haiqi Passenger Transport", and quickly put into 11 large and medium-sized buses with 7-37 seats to undertake the passenger transportation work from Sanya Haitang Bay to the three airports. In addition, 573 tourist buses have been urgently requisitioned and reserved to transport passengers to various passenger hubs in an emergency manner to ensure that passengers have a car.

According to a number of media reports, as Hainan Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Air China and many other airlines have increased the capacity of Hainan Island, or used wide-body aircraft to alleviate the tight situation of Hainan return passengers, the fares of Hainan Island flights have decreased.

Fog lock Qiongzhou Strait: the difficulty of the efficiency of ferry crossings

Compared with other popular tourist destinations in China, Hainan is more constrained by geographical conditions.

As one of the three major straits in China, the Qiongzhou Strait is an important passage from Hainan to the inland, as well as the transportation throat and economic lifeline of Hainan Province.

On the afternoon of February 16, the press conference (second) on the 2024 Spring Festival transportation work in the Qiongzhou Strait held by the Information Office of the Haikou Municipal Government informed that since the 21 days of the Spring Festival transportation from January 26 to February 15, there have been 2,776 flights out of the Qiongzhou Strait, transporting about 1.363 million passengers and about 310,000 vehicles.

However, there is no bridge or undersea tunnel in the Qiongzhou Strait, and the only way to pass through it is by flight or ferry, and trains and cars need to cross the Qiongzhou Strait by ferry. This means that in the event of bad weather, ferries will have to come to a halt and there will be long queues of vehicles stranded at the terminal.

In order to cope with the large passenger flow of this year's Spring Festival, Hainan has actually taken action for a long time. According to the "Hainan Daily", the curtain of the Spring Festival in 2024 will open, and the waterway traffic in the Qiongzhou Strait will usher in a busy period, and the traffic flow in and out of the island will increase significantly. On February 4, Feng Fei, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, went to Haikou New Port to investigate the smooth Spring Festival transportation in the Qiongzhou Strait.

Feng Fei pointed out that it is necessary to fully understand the pressure of water traffic in the Qiongzhou Strait during the Spring Festival, and do a good job in ensuring the smooth Spring Festival transportation in the Qiongzhou Strait with a high sense of responsibility and urgency. It is necessary to firmly establish a sense of service, optimize the reservation system, achieve accurate stowage, improve the efficiency of ferry transportation, and find ways to make vehicles and passengers go out and enter.

Also on February 4, Hainan Governor Liu Xiaoming presided over a special meeting of the provincial government to study the smooth operation of the Qiongzhou Strait during the Spring Festival.

Since the Spring Festival this year, the demand for sea transportation in the Qiongzhou Strait has increased significantly, and the impact of foggy weather has led to long queues of vehicles waiting to be crossed before the Spring Festival, and the peak once reached 14,224 vehicles to be ferried. With the cooperation of the Ministry of Transport and other departments, on February 8, the phenomenon of long queues of vehicles on the north and south sides of the strait and waiting for a long time was eliminated, and it was transferred to the normal operation of liners.

This is not the first time that the Qiongzhou Strait has seen a large queue across the sea due to the weather. During the Spring Festival in 2018, the Qiongzhou Strait continued to be closed due to rare fog, and tens of thousands of cars and tens of thousands of passengers were stranded near the three ports of Haikou during the Spring Festival Golden Week. And this sudden incident also exposed the shortcomings of the navigation capacity of the Qiongzhou Strait that are subject to the weather.

With the structural changes in the way of travel during the Spring Festival, Hainan Province has attracted a large number of self-driving tourists by virtue of its unique tourism resources. The strong demand for self-driving has posed new challenges to the capacity of passenger ro-ro transportation services in the Qiongzhou Strait. Many new energy vehicle owners reported that due to the sale of ferry new energy tickets, some car owners have been stranded for many days.

On the morning of the 17th, the surging news reporter inquired about the official ticketing platform "Qiongzhou Strait Ferry Butler" and found that real-time data showed that the new energy vehicle ferry tickets from Haikou New Port to Xuwen Port were sold out from February 17 to February 29.

Screenshot of the ticket purchase page

Why is there a restriction on new energy vehicles crossing the sea in the Qiongzhou Strait?

The surging news reporter noticed that the WeChat public account of "Haikou Daily" specially answered the article.

According to Hainan Strait Shipping Co., Ltd., because new energy electric vehicles mainly rely on electric energy to provide kinetic energy, it is easy to cause spontaneous combustion and fire in the case of high temperature exposure or improper charging of the vehicle. According to relevant investigations and studies, such fires spread quickly, easily release a large amount of toxic gases, and are difficult to extinguish, once out of control, will seriously damage the ship and threaten the lives of the people on board.

On December 6, 2023, the Hainan Provincial Department of Transportation and the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration issued the "Operation Guide for Ro-Ro Transportation of New Energy Vehicles in the Qiongzhou Strait", which requires: After boarding, new energy vehicles should be parked in the loading area of new energy vehicles demarcated on the ship. According to the actual situation of the ship, the number of new energy vehicles carried by the shipping company shall not exceed 10% of the ship's vehicle quota (calculated as a trolley), and the total number shall not exceed 18, and the conversion ratio of electric trucks (buses) and electric passenger cars shall be converted according to 1:3, and the converted quantity shall not exceed the total number of loads.

In view of the situation that new energy vehicles are shipwrecked through the port ferry and the number of tickets is small, the Haikou Maritime Safety Bureau actively guides enterprises to formulate a special ship transportation plan for new energy vehicles, and from February 1, the inter-provincial passenger ro-ro transport route in the Qiongzhou Strait has launched the "special ship and special class" transportation of new energy vehicles to alleviate the demand for new energy vehicles to cross the sea.

At present, how should new energy vehicle owners who still cannot buy ferry tickets get out of the island? Hainan has launched a "second plan" for leaving the island by "leaving people and leaving their cars."

According to the "Hainan Daily", on February 12, the reporter learned from the press conference on the return of the Spring Festival in the Qiongzhou Strait that the Haikou municipal government, in cooperation with the Hainan Branch of Chinese Property Insurance and China Railway Special Cargo Flow Company, has launched preferential vehicle consignment measures to provide exclusive insurance protection services for cars crossing the island and sea.

Li Zhongbiao, deputy secretary-general of Haikou Municipal Government, introduced at the meeting that in order to meet the long-distance consignment needs of cars out of the island and provide an alternative "second plan" for the island, Haikou City, in cooperation with China Railway Special Cargo Flow Company, planned and launched the "consignment out of the island" measure for vehicles. Car owners can click "Car Consignment" on the main page of the 12306 mobile APP to enter the China Railway Car Consignment interface. In order to better serve tourists and friends, China Railway Special Cargo Flow took the initiative to reduce the cost of car consignment, and the Hainan Branch of Chinese Property and Casualty Insurance formed an exclusive underwriting plan within one day to provide targeted insurance protection services.

Li Zhongbiao revealed that at present, the consignment of cars from Hainan will depart from the freight yard of Haikou South Railway Station or the freight yard of Yazhou Station in Sanya, and arrive at Harbin Xinxiangfang, Changchun, Urumqi Sanping, Beijing Shunyi and other stations.

How to fundamentally solve the dilemma of "entering and exiting the island"?

Under the various evacuation measures in Hainan Province, stranded tourists will eventually embark on their way home.

When the fog locked the Qiongzhou Strait, not only the passengers coming from the south to the north were trapped, but the problem of a single mode of transportation out of Hainan Island was once again highlighted. At this time, it will trigger the discussion of building a "cross-sea passage through the Qiongzhou Strait".

The surging news noticed that recently, some netizens have consulted through the Hainan 12345 hotline whether there is any construction information on the Qiongzhou Strait Bridge.

Hainan introduced on February 9 that due to the busy waterway of the Qiongzhou Strait and the complex geological structure and environmental conditions, the feasibility of carrying out the construction of cross-sea bridges and other related projects in the Qiongzhou Strait needs to be further studied and demonstrated. In order to break through the bottleneck of transportation, we will work with the transportation department to accelerate the construction of port infrastructure and further improve the transportation efficiency and service level of the Qiongzhou Strait.

On February 16, 2024, due to the heavy fog in the Qiongzhou Strait, the Haikou New Port cross-sea ferry was temporarily suspended to take aerial photos of the loading of cross-sea vehicles at the new seaport. Visual China Diagram

The Paper noted that since 2023, the Hainan Provincial Development and Reform Commission has repeatedly issued unified answers on the construction of the Qiongzhou Strait cross-sea channel.

For example, in November 2023, in response to netizens' suggestion of "building a bridge in the Qiongzhou Strait", the Hainan Provincial Development and Reform Commission said that after research, the waterways of the Qiongzhou Strait are busy, and the geological structure and environmental conditions are complex, and the feasibility of carrying out relevant engineering construction in the Qiongzhou Strait needs to be further studied and demonstrated. In order to break through the bottleneck of transportation and build a safer, more efficient, convenient and economical transportation channel in the Qiongzhou Strait, Hainan Province is currently working with Guangdong Province to vigorously promote the integration of ports and shipping in the Qiongzhou Strait, and coordinate and promote the construction of relevant supporting infrastructure on both sides of the Qiongzhou Strait. The passenger transport hub project of Haikou New Port Area is under construction, which will be docked with the Nanshan Port Area of Xuwen, Guangdong, and the time for passengers to cross the sea will be reduced to 1 hour. On this basis, various modes of transportation such as fast boats and seaplanes will also be considered to provide more convenient conditions for passengers to enter and leave the island.

How difficult is it to build a sea-crossing bridge over the Qiongzhou Strait? Su Quanke, chief engineer of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, once told the media that building a sea-crossing bridge over the Qiongzhou Strait is technically more challenging than the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Specifically, one of the biggest difficulties is that there is a trench in the middle and the sea is deeper. The second is that the geological cover is deeper. The third is that the natural environment is harsher, including the wind factor. But Su Quanke said that the construction of cross-sea passages, whether bridges or tunnels, believes that these technical problems can be solved in the future.

Wu Shicun, chairman of the Huayang Marine Research Center and chairman of the academic committee of the China South China Sea Research Institute, pointed out in an article that Hainan is a typical island economy with a small hinterland, a small population and a small economic aggregate, with a high dependence on the mainland economy, and the logistics cost in and out of the island is higher than that of the mainland. With the acceleration of the construction of the free trade port, the flow of people and logistics between Hainan and the island will show an "explosive" growth, and the annual number of domestic and foreign tourists is expected to increase to 2-300 million in the future, and the traffic bottleneck constraints will become increasingly prominent. Therefore, the hard connection construction of the "cross-sea channel project" should be "sooner rather than later" and "faster than slow", and it is necessary to plan and start construction as soon as possible.

Some scholars have suggested that in view of the fact that it is easy to queue up when driving away from the island during the tourist season, we can refer to the actual efficiency of crossing the sea to implement measures to limit the flow of vehicles entering the island, and issue relevant warnings to the society in a timely manner to guide tourists to make reasonable travel plans. Moderate control of self-driving vehicles entering the island.

Under the positioning of Hainan Free Trade Port and International Tourism Island, the outside world has put forward higher expectations for the development of Hainan tourism, and the "difficulty of leaving the island" is not only a test of the local government's management ability, but also puts forward higher requirements for social management capabilities, early warning mechanisms, infrastructure, etc.