At the zero hour on April 28th, 2008, a newterminal of Tianjin Airport was officially putinto service. With the new terminal of TianjinBinhai International Airport brought into use,Tianjin Airport has observed new developmentopportunities in the past few months. In July,2008, the passenger volume increased by 19.4percent compared with the same period of lastyear, reaching a monthly record-high of 413,000person-times. At the same time, the cargo andmail volume increased by 80.7 percent year-onyear,exceeding 18,000 tons.

The new building, started construction onAugust 8th, 2005, is located on the east of theairstrips, with the main building area of 116,000square meters, building height of 40.3 meters,width of 165 meters and the distance of 480meters from the main entrance to the end ofthe central hallway. The exterior facades aremade up of light green glasses and the interioris bright and well lit with mainly clean white.

The new terminal is a two-level structure with apartial third level. The fourth floor of the mainbuilding is for office and functional area. Thefirst floor of the main building is the arrival hall,the second the departure hall, which is mainlycomposed of domestic and international departure,check-in hall, security, airport lounge,first-class lounge and other accessory facilities.It has 19 parking aprons, 60 ticket servicecounters and 17 security aisles. The passengerboarding bridge has a scissor-shape split-leveldesign, which completely separates the arrivaland departure flow. Besides, there is a transitcounter on the interlayer to allow passengersto go through transition procedure.

With the new building being put into operation,the airport is divided into the East Area,the passenger terminal area, and West one, thecargo terminal area, by the existing airstrips. Thenew terminal is capable of handling a passengerflow of 10 million person-times annually.Tianjin is one of the cities, which initiated civilair transportation in China. Tianjin Binhai InternationalAirport was built in November, 1939.

On August 1st, 1950, the first civil flight courseof the People’s Republic of China went intooperation. The airport was also responsiblefor training professional pilots and aviationtechnical people and therefore it is famous as“Cradle for New China’s Civil Aviation”. In October1995, Tianjin Zhangguizhuang Airport wasapproved as International Aerial Line Airportand in December of the same year, its namewas changed into Tianjin Binhai InternationalAirport, approved by the then General Administrationof the Civil Aviation of China.

It is estimated that by 2010, the airport will havemore than 100 domestic and international aircourses. The domestic air courses will cover allprovincial capital cities, municipalities and majortourist cities. Domestic air course network radiatingaround Tianjin will be established and allmiddle- and small-sized airports less than 800kilometers away from Tianjin will be open to airtraffic. There will be fast international air coursesto South Korea and Japan. In two years, touristair courses to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia andIndia will be launched, while courses to Americaand European countries are supposed to openas soon as possible.

It is estimated that by the year 2020, the passengervolume of Tianjin Airport will be sixteenfoldof that in 2000.