CAH EXPECTS BEIJING AIRPORT TO HANDLE 60 MLN PASSENGERS THIS YEAR

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 13 (Bernama) -- Capital Airports Holding Company (CAH),
the operator of Beijing Capital International Airport expects to handle more
than 60 million passengers this year from about 53 million last year.

CAH president, Zhang Zhizhong said the increase in capacity is a guarantee
of its Air Hub-building strategy of Beijing Airport, the biggest airport in
China.

"The lack of capacity has been significantly improved after the opening of
Terminal 3," he said during a conference at the 14th World Route Development
Forum (Routes KL 2008) here Sunday.

So far, designed passenger capacity has moved up to 82 million,
the designed capacity for cargo has reached 2.2 million tons while the capacity
for movements during peak hour has amounted to 120 movements, he said.

"Inside China, Beijing Airport offers good opportunities for developing
Northeast-Southwest, Northeast-South China, Northeast-East China and
Northeast-North China transfer services," he said.

CAH owns and operates 34 airports in nine provinces including the Beijing
Airport. The company also has investment in other airports in China such as
the Shenyang and Dalian airports.

"Amongst all our airports, in terms of passenger throughput, two of them
exceed 10 million, four of them are between four million and 10 million, and
three of them between two million and four million.

"All CAH member airports move 30 percent of all China air passengers," he
said, adding that in 2007 the passenger throughput was 186 million, 80 times
more when compared with 1978.

Since 1978, the annual growth rate of China's air transport has been
1.8 times of that of the national economy, which is a catalyst for the national
economic development.
- BERNAMA