Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has been declared officially open by Yang Yuanyuan, director of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China. Flight operations will begin on Thursday.

Three operational rehearsals and an inspection have been carried out in readiness for the opening.

Guangzhou’s existing airport will cease operations when the last flight lands shortly before midnight on Wednesday. The first flight on August 5 will take off from the new airport, 28 kilometers from downtown Guangzhou.

“Some of the relocation work has already been finished and moving of vital flight equipment will be finished late Wednesday, ready for the first take-off on Thursday,” said Zhang Chunlin, president of the Guangdong Provincial Airport Administration Group, at a ceremony Monday.

China Southern Airlines, the airport’s base airline company, moved its Boeing 747 engines and maintenance platforms to the new site last Wednesday.

More than 70,000 pieces of equipment will be moved to the new airport in the next few days. The relocation should be complete by Saturday.

Baiyun will become Guangdong’s main air traffic hub, with the airports in Shenzhen and Zhuhai serving as trunks. Those in Shantou, Meixian and Zhanjiang will serve as support airports, said Huang Huahua, governor of Guangdong Province.

Construction of the project, which cost 19.8 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion), began in August 2000.

The initial phase covers an area of 15 square kilometers. It is capable of handling 25 million passengers annually and 1 million tons of cargo a year.

(China Daily August 3, 2004)