It’s 20 km2 covered with four runways and a terminal that should receive 80 million passengers per year. It will be the biggest airport offshore of the country, but it is still far from existing.
Currently under construction off the country’s northeast coast, the Baía de Dalian Jinzhou will end up cover an island of 20 km2 with four lanes and a passenger terminal 900 000 m2according to a statement from the airport where he had access.
The objective is to receive 80 million passengers per year on 540 thousand flightsand the first phase should be inaugurated in 2035. According to the website, the investment exceeds 4 billion euros.
“O biggest airport offshore of the country is slowly rising above sea level, like the sunrise in the east,” reads a post by Dalian Jinzhou Bay International on the Chinese platform WeChat.
This construction will surpass Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) and Kansai Airport (KIX), in Japan, both also built on artificial islands (the largest so far).
“There were major challenges in construction”, in October Li Xiangchief engineer of Dalian Airport Construction and Development, “since the project has complex geological conditionshigh drilling difficulty and high quality requirements with a tight construction schedule”.
The city of Dalian has long been a transportation hub due to its proximity to Japan and South Korea. It has “only” 7.5 million inhabitants (it is only the 18th most populous city in China) and already has an airport, Dalian Zhoushuizi, which has been expanded several times but remains insufficient.
New airports are a key part of China’s aviation growth. The country is on the way to surpass the United States and become the largest air travel market of the world.
According to CNN, during the inauguration of Beijing’s second airport in October 2019, Chinese authorities assured that the country would need 450 airports by 2035 to keep up with demand.
