Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport has opened its new terminal two and cargo facility aimed at making China’s commercial centre and largest city the cargohub of Asia by 2010.
The terminal more than doubles the number of passengers the airport is equipped to handle to 60 million a year from the current 28 million, according to airport authorities.
Similarly, the cargo handling capacity at Pudong, located near the seaside in Shanghai’s new financial district, will rise by 1 million tonnes per year to 3.4 million tonnes per year.
By 2015, Pudong plans to complete a third passenger terminal, raising its capacity to 80 million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo a year, according to a recent report by the Centre for Asia Pacifi c Aviation.
The 480,000-square-meter terminal, said to be modelled on a seagull design, comes amid a boom in airport construction in China. Nearly 100 new airports are due to be built by 2020, according to a plan by the General Administration of Civil Aviation. China had 147 airports as of 2006, according to the China Daily.
"As the passenger numbers and cargo flow have kept up double-digit growth for years, the old infrastructure can no longer satisfy the soaring demand," said Shanghai Airport Authority Chairman Wu Nianzu. "The target now is to make the airport the key hub of Asia’s air traffic. By 2015 the airport will be able to handle 80 million passengers," he added.
The expansion was planned to ease pressure at the airport and handle the expected surge in visitors for the Beijing Olympics this year and the World Expo in 2010.
Meanwhile, Shanghai’s Hongqiao International Airport, in the western suburbs, is due to boost its annual capacity to 30 million passengers with the completion by 2010 of a new terminal and runway, the China Daily quoted Jia Ruijun, general manager of Shanghai International Airport Co., as saying.