Benazir Bhutto (New Islamabad) International Airport, Islamabad, Pakistan
Key Data:
Order Year 2005
Project Type New greenfield airport
Location Islamabad, Pakistan
Estimated Investment $400m, PKR37bn
Completion 20112012
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Construction of new Islamabad airport to be completed by end of 2011
By Iftikhar A. Khan
Saturday, 27 Jun, 2009 | 03:34 AM PST
ISLAMABAD, June 26: The National Assembly was informed on Friday that the construction work on new Islamabad International Airport will be completed by the end of 2011.
Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar told the house that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had already acquired 3,200 acres of land for the airport near Fatehjang, about 20 kilometres from Zero Point in Islamabad and 23 kilometres from Saddar in Rawalpindi.
Mr Mukhtar said the CAA was completing this project on self-finance basis and had provided over Rs5 billion in the current financial year.
Official sources said an additional 400 acres had also been acquired to build two runways for the first green-field airport in Pakistan.
There will be two 4,000-foot-long runways for largest and heaviest aircraft, though initially only one will be used for operations and the other will be retained as an emergency runway.
The project was announced in January 2005 after a 10-year delay due to political changes in the country and construction began in April 2007, when funding became available.The new airport will eventually replace the overloaded Benazir Bhutto airport at Chaklala, providing better access for the Northern Areas, NWFP, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Azad Kashmir.
The airport will be constructed in two phases. The first will involve the construction of taxiways, aprons and other airside infrastructure, and the second will see car parking for 2,000 vehicles, a covered plaza area for 200 cars, a control tower, maintenance hangar, a 15-gate terminal with 10 remote gates, 42 immigration counters, nine baggage claim carousels, 12 X-ray machines, and also office and administration facilities.
There will also be a hotel, convention centre, duty-free shops, airside mall, business centre, food court, leisure facilities and banks at the new terminal.
The airport will have an 180,000 metre square modular terminal building which will initially be able to handle nine million passengers a year.
There will also be a cargo complex capable of handling 100,000 tons a year, four rapid-exit taxiways, a special parking area for hijacked aircraft, apron parking sufficient for the contact stands, underground cable network, parking for ground handling vehicles, secure cargo areas and major airport road infrastructure.
The design of the new terminal building will be an architecturally significant one for Pakistan, producing a national icon for the country.
The design will also be sustainable and environmentally sound with use of natural daylight for main lighting and sun shading to cut cooling costs as well as an intelligent main roof (water conservation) and an elongated driveway length front portal (better views and more light).
The terminal will also make full use of traditional Islamic geometric patterns in its design.
The modular terminal building will have a linear pier on each side and a centre pier extending out to serve the boarding gates.
The international and domestic halls will be located together under the main roof, which will be a simple trapezoid cantilevered from one of the two side piers with a cantilevered mesh screen trellis defining the exposed roof edge and attaching to a row of columns close to the ground.
The then president Pervez Musharraf had performed the groundbreaking ceremony of the $400 million modern airport project in April 2007, which he said would prove as a step forward to turn Pakistan into a major regional hub for trade, tourism and communication.
DAWN.COM | National | Construction of new Islamabad airport to be completed by end of 2011