Beijing: China is planning to build the world's largest airport at the cost of around USD 15 billion, which will replace America's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as the busiest airport in the world.
Beijing is to build a new airport, which is likely to be the world's largest in terms of passenger traffic, to the southeast of the city, official media reported here today.
The new airport, yet to be named, is to be located on the border between Beijing and Langfang, a city in north China's Hebei province located about 45 kilometres from Beijing's city centre.
The new international airport will have nine runways with capacity to deal with 130 million passengers and 5,500,000 tonnes of cargo annually thereby replacing the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, to become the busiest in the world, state-run China Radio International reported.
The new airport will also act as a hub, connecting highways, transportation roads and roads in rural areas together.
This will be the third civil airport in Beijing, following the Nanyuan Airport and the Beijing International Airport, which houses Terminal three, the largest building in the world.
The present airport handled about 74 million passengers annually close to its capacity.
It has emerged as the world's second largest in terms of passenger traffic over taking London's Heathrow in terms of seating capacity last year.
According to aviation experts, it is only next to Atlanta Hartsfield airport in United States.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, February 26, 2012, 11:53