BEIJING - When its
new terminal is finished at the end of 2007,
Pudong International Airport, Shanghai's
international airport, will be able to handle 60
million passengers a year, three times its current
capacity. Designs for phase two of the expansion
have been unveiled by the Shanghai Xian Dai
Architectural Design Group.
The expansion,
which some reports say will cost about 10 billion
yuan (US$1.24 billion), includes a third runway.
The facelift was intended to make the airport a
significant world transport hub, said
Guo
Jianxiang, deputy director of the East China
Architectural Institute Corporation under the
design group, who is also an architect involved in
the project.
The goal was to meet the
maximum needs of all Shanghai-based airlines while
also offering passengers maximum convenience, Guo
said. The current Pudong terminal is designed to
handle 20 million passengers a year. Last year, 11
million passengers passed through its arrival and
departure halls. The airport's projected total
capacity after expansion is 60 million passengers
a year.
Guo said the new terminal's
three-story design would channel passengers more
efficiently. International departures will be
handled on the top floor, international arrivals
on the middle floor and domestic arrivals and
departures will take up the bottom floor. "The
waiting hall for international departures in the
new terminal will be twice the size of the current
hall," Guo said. "New security checks will also be
introduced, which will subject passengers on some
arriving domestic flights to checks."
Many
airlines are already working on their own
expansion plans for Shanghai. Sources with
Northwest Airlines said it would add more flights
to and from the United States by 2008. "Better
airport services accompanying the expansion will
attract more airlines to set up regional offices
here," said David Shi, sales manager for Northwest
in Shanghai.
About 45 domestic and foreign
airlines land and take off from Pudong and
Hongqiao airports. Airlines with few Shanghai
flights, such as Hong Kong-based Cathay
Pacific, also see new opportunities.
"The
expansion increases the likelihood we will have
our own planes flying between Shanghai and Hong
Kong," said Nancy Lu, sales manager of the
airline, which cooperates with China Eastern
Airlines and Dragonair flights. Zhang Ming, from
Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines (CEA), said
CEA planned to add 40 airplanes to its fleet over
the next two years.
