Rapid growth at the existing Zhoushuizi International Airport in Dalian in China has forced the Dalian municipal government to build a brand new gateway into the north-eastern province of Liaoning – at sea.

 

The existing space-constrained airport (below) – which processed 14.1m passengers in 2013 – has already been through three revamps, but capacity is expected to reach saturation by 2016.

 

As a result, the provincial government has opted for a new airport at sea, built on reclaimed land at a cost of around CNY 16.5bn ($2.7bn) which is understood to reflect the reclamation outlays only.

 

Called Dalian Jinzhou Bay International Airport, the construction will take place simultaneously with the Dalian airport industrial park land reclamation project. The airport will join a list of other offshore airports in the region such as Nagasaki and Kansai in Japan, and Hong Kong International.

 

The construction will happen in two stages: the reclamation itself for which approvals by the provincial government are largely complete; and the design of the airport, where the formalities for commissioning, contracting etc are about to start.