Having long exceeded its designed capacity of 17 million passengers per year, Shenzhen (Bao'an) International Airport is speeding up the construction of its third terminal (pictured) to meet its set opening date of August next year.
The Terminal 3 will have 451,000 sqm in building area and it will completely replace the previous two terminals, which will used retained for other uses, such as retail or exhibitions. The new facility is designed to handle 45 million passengers per year and it is to feature the latest technology such as intelligent baggage handling.
This year, the Shenzhen airport is expecting to reach 30 million in passenger traffic volume.
But given the previous years' growth rates, will this terminal find itself filled to the brim again within a decade? Long Qi, deputy chief of safety, quality, planning and design department at the Shenzhen Airport Expansion Project Headquarters says it would be unlikely. "The growth rates of the next 10 years will be slower. The future growth will be on a much higher base, and in the next five years we are expecting six to eighth per cent growth rates."
So far the percentages recorded have been double-digit.
But in the case that the new terminal finds itself nearing capacity, there is land next to it for a Terminal 4. "It will be a mirrored copy of T3 but a bit smaller, siting on the other side, with its own access roads because the current ones won't be able to cope," Long says.
There will be 64 or 68 position gates available at T3, and it will be A380-ready. There will also be another 14 remote stands. Investment in the new terminal is US$1 billion, according to Long.
The airport has two runways, the second of which opened last year. There is space reserved for a third runway, which will be a shorter and smaller one.
At present 95 per cent of the some 450 flights serving the Shenzhen airport is domestic, and 35 per cent of them are operated by home carrier Shenzhen Airlines.
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Reggie Ho