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China’s most popular tourist destination for both domestic and international tourists has just opened a new airport, the Chengdu Tianfu International Airport, in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province.

Sichuan is famous for its spicy cuisine, beautiful scenery, and of course, the giant panda, so the scale of this mega-airport makes sense.

At present, the airport has three runways and two terminals that cover a total area of 710 000 square metres, reports CNN, making the development look like an alien spaceship from above:

Image: Xinhua

A flight operated by Sichuan Airlines marked the opening of the airport on Sunday, welcoming passengers for take-off towards Beijing:

Image: Xinhua

Phase one of the ginormous aviation hub, which took five years to complete, aims to open up the country’s southwest region more than ever before, with a capacity to handle up to 60 million passengers per year.

It features a number of cutting-edge technologies, including facial recognition software, self-check-in kiosks, smart security systems, self-boarding gates, and AI robot concierges.

Something that takes up this much space deserves a video tour:

But the plans for the airport don’t stop there. Eventually, it will house terminals covering 1,4 million square metres, capable of handling 120 million passengers annually, according to state media outlet Xinhua.

The cost of construction was just as massive, coming in at around 70 billion Chinese yuan ($10,8 billion).

It looks expensive inside, too:

Image: Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

Although China remains closed to most international travellers, aviation analyst Brendan Sobie said the new airport in Chengdu is “needed to accommodate continued rapid growth”:

“China’s domestic market has already fully recovered from the pandemic and will continue to grow rapidly. Given the size of the city and its central location in China, Chengdu is very well-positioned to benefit.”

There are also plans for a metro line connecting the new facility to the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, due for completion in 2023.

The metro lines that have been built already are no joke and can hit speeds of up to 140 kilometres per hour, and take from 37 to 44 minutes to get from the airport to the city centre.

Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is just one of many airports China plans to open in the coming years:

The country aims to have 400 airports in use by 2035, a huge leap from the current 241, according to the Transportation Network Planning Outline issued by the government in early 2021.

That’s a lot of aviation ground.

South Africa only has 90 airports, which is cute in comparison.

[source:cnn]