By Yuling Chen, EDITOR

 Airplanes flash across the sky, and what they meet finally is the future.

An airplane takes off from the Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport.

A week ago,  the Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport in Southwest China has handled its 40-millionth passenger this year.

 Every departure and arrival signifies Chongqing's contact with the rest of the world.

For cities neither alongside sea nor near the border, meeting the world by air is a feasible way to travel. And Chongqing as one representative of these kind of cities is opening more of itself to the world due to its aviation development.

This year, the number of passangers going through Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport is expected to exceed 41 million, heralding its entry into the top 50 airports in the world.

Passengers at the Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport

Jiangbei International Airport has been included in the top 10 airports in China, yet three decades ago, this land was full of wild wheat. Workers used trucks of concrete and bars of reinforcing steel to turn these wheat fields into runways and terminals.

Invigorated by reform and opening-up in the 1980s, Chongqing was eager to reach out to the world. Nevertheless, limited by landforms and meteorological conditions at that time, Baishiyi Airport, known as the “Air Gateway”, could not meet the needs of Chongqing's rapid development. As a result, the construction of Jiangbei International Airport was placed on the agenda. 

Airport construction

Miao Qingtian came to Chongqing in 1994, and then he joined Chongqing Branch of China Southwest Airlines (today’s Air China). At that time, Jiangbei International Airport had been open to air traffic for only four years. It’s been 30 years, during which Miao Qingtian has witnessed its growth.

He believes that the largest change in this airport is the increasing routes. Most of the original flights cover the surrounding cities, such as Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou Province and Kunming in Yunnan Province. Generally speaking, there were not any flights in or out after 8:00 p.m.

Airport at night

Nowadays, Jiangbei International Airport has opened a total of 80 international (regional) air routes, including 65 passenger routes and 14 freight ones. The destinations cover 59 cities in 24 countries (regions) in five continents.

At first, it only had a 2,800-meter-long runway and one terminal, but today, it boasts three runways and three terminals. The opening of the third runway, with a length of 3,800 meters, has greatly improved the safety redundancy of flying.

The airport’s evolution is also a mirror of the development history of Chongqing. This airport is speeding up the preliminary work of its fourth runway.

Source: Xinhua Net

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