BEIJING 28 February 2008 Beijing prepares for opening of new vast airport terminal. "World's largest and most advanced"

Preparations for the opening of Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3 are due to be completed by Feb 28, according to airport spokesman Li Xiaomei. Testing begins the next day, he said in August, and will continue through June. It will be a dress rehearsal for July and August when visitors to the 2008 Summer Olympics begin descending on the country. 'It's the world's largest and most advanced airport building,' says the project's architect, Norman Foster. The single terminal will be larger than all the terminals at London's Heathrow Airport.

Dutch airport planners NACO, architects Foster and Partners and engineers ARUP, working with the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design and Research, won the contract to design and engineer the terminal in an international competition.

Foster designed Britain's Stansted Airport and Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok International Airport.

The expansion of Beijing airport anticipates a massive increase in passengers -- to 60 million passengers per annum by 2015 from the present 27 million -- as a result of the Olympics and also China's entry into the World Trade Organization.

In anticipation of the large volume of baggage that will accompany Olympians and visitors coming to the Games, airport authorities have installed a new US $2.4 billion luggage system. that will be able handle up to 19,200 pieces per hour, more than three times the volume being handled presently, and there will be about 200 CCTV monitors to track luggage movements. A feature of the new system, airport spokesman Li, is its five-grade security scanning system to detect explosives, and allowing luggage up to 1mX85cmX85cm to be checked in. Aug/07

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