Shanghai Pudong International Airport

Pudong is China's busiest airport by both passenger and cargo throughput. In 2025 it handled 84.99 million passengers, 4.09 million tonnes of cargo and 557,043 aircraft movements — first in the country on all three counts. Four runways are in civil operation, together with two terminals and one satellite concourse.

466 signs replaced in a single night

Before dawn on 2 June 2011, all 466 taxiway guidance signs across the 4.55 km² airfield were switched from old to new in one night, with the airport still operating. It remains the largest single-batch sign replacement at a Chinese airport.

The signs coming out used halogen sources: low colour temperature, visible point sources and poor panel uniformity, none of which met the new requirements for luminance, chromaticity and uniformity. The replacements use fluorescent-lit translucent film panels that are brighter at brightness step 3 than the halogen units were at step 5, while drawing 75% of the energy per unit. The programme ran in three batches: 500 signs in December 2010, the 466-sign overnight switch in June 2011, and a further 290 in July 2012.

The C919 test-flight runway

In May 2012 Pudong built a fourth runway at the southern end of the field for test flights of the Chinese-built C919. Airsafe supplied all of its airfield lighting — 5,500 sets covering runway lights, taxiway lights, sequenced flashing lights and hold position lights. The fourth runway entered service on 28 March 2015.

Continuous supply

• May 2009 — 1,700 taxiway centreline lights ahead of Expo 2010, following 1,600 supplied in 2008
• September 2012 — around 600 in-pavement runway guard lights and taxiway stop bar lights
• June 2013 — around 4,700 taxiway centreline lights for the second runway renewal
• September 2015 — east and south apron expansion: 3,852 light fittings and 3,603 isolation transformers
• May 2018 — third-phase airfield expansion: around 4,600 taxiway lights, isolation transformers and signs