China's Dalian Jinzhou bay international airport to become world's largest offshore airport

(MENAFN) The Dalian Jinzhou Bay International Airport, which is now under development off the country's northeast coast, would eventually cover a 20-square-kilometer (7.7-square-mile) island with four runways and a 900,000-square-meter (969,000-square-foot) passenger terminal, according to an airport statement.

Its operators intend to handle 80 million people per year on 540,000 flights, with the first phase scheduled to open in 2035.

"The country's largest offshore airport is slowly rising from the sea level like the sunrise in the east," reads a post by Dalian Jinzhou Bay International on Chinese social media site WeChat.

Once completed, it will be the world's largest airport on an artificial island, surpassing Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) and Japan's Kansai Airport (KIX).

“There have been great challenges to the construction,” Li Xiang, leader engineer of Dalian Airport Construction and Development Co., Ltd., said to state-run local news in October, “as the project has complex geological conditions, high drilling difficulty and high demand in quality with a tight construction schedule.”

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