China’s central government has given the green light for the construction of a second airport in Chengdu.

Located in Jianyang, approximately 52km southeast of downtown Chengdu, the new airport will be able to handle up to 40 million passengers and 320,000 take-off s and landings per year, by the time all phases of the project are complete in 2025. It will feature three runways and a 520,000m² terminal complex, and will be able to handle the world's largest passenger aircraft including the Airbus A380.

The project is expected to cost approximately CNY69.3 billion (US$11.3bn), with construction scheduled to get underway by the end of this year.

Chengdu will become only the third city in China to have two large airports, following Shanghai (Pudong and Hongqiao) and Beijing, which is developing a new hub in Daxing to complement the existing Capital International Airport.

Chengdu's existing airport, Shuangliu International, is currently the fifth busiest in China, handling 33.4m passengers in 2013.

Source from <Travel Daily Asia>