Construction of a third runway at the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport has entered a new phase — ground facilities.

A key project in Guangdong Province, the runway is being built on 2.8 square kilometers of land reclaimed from the sea, which is equivalent to 400 soccer fields. Extensive work on land formation, including dredging and soft foundation treatment, has recently been completed and passed the Ministry of Natural Resources’ acceptance test.

The 3,600-meter-long, 45-meter-wide runway is expected to be operational by the end of 2025, according to the Shenzhen Municipal Public Work Bureau. The 4F-level runway — the highest classification for civil aviation — can accommodate large aircraft like the A380, the world’s largest passenger plane.

The project also includes a 3,200-square-meter control tower, a 9,500-square-meter operations building, and an 800-square-meter equipment building for air control, communication, navigation, monitoring, and meteorology.

With an investment of 12.3 billion yuan (US$1.76 billion), the project will significantly improve the capacity and efficiency of the airport by meeting projected annual throughput demands of 80 million passengers and 2.6 million tons of cargo by 2030.

The airport now has two parallel runways. The first one was put into use in 1991 when the airport opened and the second in 2011. The two runways were designed to handle 45 million passengers a year. However, the airport surpassed this capacity in 2023 with 52.73 million passenger trips. In addition, the 33-year-old first runway requires maintenance.

The latest statistics show that the Shenzhen airport is one of the world’s busiest airports, handling a total of 32.26 million passenger trips between Jan. 1 and July 17 this year, a 20% year-on-year increase. The airport connects 130 domestic cities and more than 40 cities abroad. It also operates more than 60 domestic and international cargo routes, strengthening Shenzhen’s status as a world logistics center.