New Islamabad Airport to be made operative by December 2010


ISLAMABAD, Apr 23 (APP): The new most modern Islamabad International Airport would be made operative by December 2010, Director General Civil Aviation Authority Farooq Rehmatullah said Wednesday.

Talking to PTV, he said the airport will have the capacity to handle 9 million passengers.It would be enhanced to 25 million later on.

The airport’s distance from Zero point Islamabad is around 30 km. The contract for this project has been given to an American company, which will complete the initial project within a few months, he added.

The new airport will have two runways on both sides of its building,

and will be a complete commercial outlet, with its own grid station and

residential colonies for CAA employees, he said

The National Highway Authority (NHA) will construct highways near the airport. The construction of the new airport has provided over 2,500 employment opportunities.

The designing of towers,runways,control towers would be executed by a French Company.

The length would be 3800 meters can easily accommodate A-380 Air Bus.It will have 18 gates for parking.The parking capacity would be doubled later on sufficient for next 35 years.

Tender would be invited within a few days for constructing additional runways,taxiways,control towers,etc.While terminal building construction would be initiated within a period of next four months,he added.

In Pakistan there are 42 airports.Out of which only 23 are operational while one airport is in private sector.Only four airports Peshawar,Islamabad Lahore and Karachi are in profit while remaining all are in losses.

Planning is underway to increase the contribution of aviation to GDP to 1 percent from current 0.1 percent within a period of next four years. After every three minutes one aircraft is handled.Plan already finalised to increase air traffic growth to 14 percent per annum.

I can't wait, Islamabad really needs an international standard airport. Not like that bus terminal pretending to be an airport in Rawalpindi. I remember waiting there once and the electricity kept going out. And there was little facilities there at all. Embarrassing. This new airport will bring in lots of new development like the Lahore airport. In fact, last year I remember there was already tons of development in the direction of the airport.

Does anyone have any pictures of the airport it is way overdue should have been operational by now I hope its as good as the IKIA in Tehran if not better because I hate flying to the current Islamabad airport.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.p...127&page=28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPgw1vRHtG0

Video of New Airport site. Made by a Housing scheme next to airport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL-V_tHlctw...feature=related

Work on new airport enters 2nd phase

ISLAMABAD: The construction work on new Islamabad airport project has entered the second phase. The new airport project is scheduled to be completed by end of 2010 and it would offer international standard facilities to 6.5 million passengers besides handling of 100,000 metric tonnes of cargo annually.

According to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sources, the second phase of the project includes construction of runway, taxiway, emergency runway, apron, and air side infrastructure. app

Hope it will complete in time

Its not a bad looking airport, too bad they're naming it after Bhutto