Getting from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to the city

The airport-to-airport railway

• Shanghai has something almost no other city has: a rail line built to join its two airports. The Airport Link Line runs between Hongqiao and Pudong in about 40 minutes.
• The full journey is CNY 26, with shorter hops from CNY 4.
• It is classed as a suburban railway, not a metro line, and prices accordingly: by distance and by the line's designed maximum speed.
• If you have a connection between the two airports on separate tickets, this is the answer. It replaces a long taxi ride across the city.

The trap in the day passes

• A one-day pass is CNY 18 and a three-day CNY 45, both unlimited on Shanghai Rail Transit.
• Neither covers the Maglev, and neither covers suburban railway lines opened in or after 2024, which is exactly what the Airport Link Line is.
• So a day pass bought for the city will not get you between the airports. Buy that leg separately.
• The passes are not collected at the exit gate, so keep them for the return trip.

Into the city

• The ordinary metro is distance based from CNY 3 for up to 6 km, plus CNY 1 for every further 10 km. Where two routes exist between the same pair of stations, the fare uses the shorter one.
• Hongqiao is much closer to the city than Pudong, which is the practical reason domestic flights favour it.
• Downtown buses are CNY 2 on regular routes; special downtown routes start at CNY 2 and rise in CNY 1 steps, suburban routes start at CNY 1.

Paying, and the discounts

• The Suishenxing app generates one code for buses, ferries and the metro, and accepts Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Diners Club and JCB as well as Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay.
• Arriving by train instead? The Suishenma transport code is available through the 12306 platform and works on the metro, buses, the Airport Link Line, the Maglev and ferries, though not the Jinshan Rail Line.
• Bus to metro within 120 minutes on the same card saves CNY 1.
• Over CNY 70 of metro travel in a calendar month earns 10 percent off the rest of that month.

Taxis

• CNY 14 to start, or CNY 16 for Touran and Roewe Ei5 and E6 electric taxis.
• CNY 2.7 per kilometre after the first 3 km.
• A 50 percent surcharge applies to the distance fare beyond 15 km, so a long cross-city run is not cheap.
• A 30 percent surcharge applies between 11pm and 5am on both the base and the distance beyond 3 km, and there are holiday surcharges of CNY 10 at Spring Festival and CNY 5 at National Day and May Day.

And the Maglev, for completeness

• It serves Pudong, not Hongqiao, running 30 km to Longyang Road in eight minutes at up to 300 km/h.
• CNY 50 single, CNY 80 return, or CNY 55 for a combined one-day metro pass with a single Maglev trip and CNY 85 with a return.