New Airport Planned for Changchun
This capital of northeast China's Jilin Province will spend 1. 45 billion yuan on building its first civil- traffic-only airport over the next three years, according to official sources. The general plan for the airport, located at Longjiapu in the suburbs of the city, has been approved by the central authorities,and the design work is going on, the sources said. Changchun, a major industrial city in northeast China, currently has a military and civil dual- purpose airport, which handled about 967,000 passengers in 2000. At the current annual growth rate of 19.7 percent, the city's air passengers are expected to hit 2.5 million by 2010, far exceeding the capacity of the existing airport. The new airport will be able to handle large planes such as Airbus 300s and Boeing 767s, and have space for nine planes on its parking apron. The construction work is scheduled to begin early next year, the sources said.