Air travel is a mainstay form of transportation for those that need to travel long distances and regardless the cost of fuel will remain so for some time, or at least until teleportation becomes a reality. As such airports are an important part of transportation which means they need to become bigger and better designed.
Now when it comes to giant airports China has two of them but it seems that may not be enough since they have announced that they are going to be building another giant airport outside of Beijing; but we’re not talking just any giant size airport here.
Nope, the airport that China is talking about building will be approximately the size of the island of Bermuda; or if you want that in actual measurements it’ll be just shy of 21 square miles. Beside being almost the size of Bermuda the airport will be one or two square miles smaller than all of Manhattan.
Beijing’s new airport will be located about 30 miles outside of the city center, although by the time it’s completed, the city of Beijing will likely have expanded and absorbed two other nearby cities to form one giant ultramegasupercity. To deal with the growing demand for air travel, the airport will boast eight runways (plus one extra for the military) and enough capacity to handle up to 200 million passengers per year. For the record, this is more runways than any other airport, and more capacity than any other airport, besting London’s Heathrow by a factor of two.
via DVICE
China is just breaking ground on the first leg of the airport and expect to have it done and running by 2015.
image is of Beijing’s current giant airport and is courtesy of DVICE
