LAHORE – First-ever plane carrying Defence Minister Ch Ahmad Mukhtar landed at the newly-completed runway of New Benazir Bhutto International Airport (NBBIA) on Thursday, said spokesman of Civil Aviation Authority here.
The work on runways and taxiways stands completed while the rest of the airside infrastructure will be completed by October 2012, the spokesman claimed.
Also present on the occasion were Additional Secretary Ministry of Defence, Dy DG, CAA and Joint Secretary Aviation Ministry of Defence. Director General, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, Air Marshal (R) Khalid Choudhry received the guests. The guests were shown the various facilities under construction at the site.
The new airport site is located on 3,200 acres of land at Pind Ranjha near Fateh Jang; some 25 km from Zero-Point, Islamabad and 23 km from Saddar, Rawalpindi. This will involve a driving time of 30 minutes from the twin cities.
The airport is being developed as a state-of-the-art facility at par with international standards to serve as a major hub for all aviation activities in the region. The new airport facility, which is the first Green Field airport in Pakistan, shall comprise of a contemporary state-of-the-art passenger terminal building, control tower, runway with a provision of a secondary/emergency runway, fast exit taxiways, aprons and a cargo complex together with all the necessary infrastructure and ancillary facilities.
The NBBIA would cater the requirements of the latest generation of modern passenger aircraft including the A380. The NBBIA has a modular design to handle 6.5 million passengers per annum and 100,000 metric tones cargo per annum. Being a new airport, a significant portion of the land has been earmarked for commercial purposes such as duty-free shops, hotels and convention centers, air malls, business centers, food courts, leisure and recreational facilities etc. In line with master plan for current development, the development of BBIAP Project is planned in three broad phases i.e. Phase-1: Airside Infrastructure, Phase-2: Passenger Terminal Building (PTB) and Phase-3: Landside Infrastructure.