Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport
Encyclopedia
Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport is the principal airport serving Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...

, a major city in the Yangtze River Delta
Yangtze River Delta
The Yangtze River Delta, Yangtze Delta or YRD, also called Yangzi, or Chang Jiang Delta, Rive Chang Delta Tai Lake Region or the Golden Triangle of the Yangtze, generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of Wu-speaking Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province and northern Zhejiang province of...

 region and the capital of Zhejiang Province, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

The airport is located on the southern shore of Qiantang River
Qiantang River
The Qiantang River is a southeast Chinese river that originates in the borders of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces and passes through Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, before flowing into the East China Sea through Hangzhou Bay....

 in Xiaoshan District and is 27 km east of downtown Hangzhou.

In 2010, Hangzhou airport handled 17,068,585 passengers and became the 9th busiest airport in China. In addition, the airport was the country's 8th busiest airport in terms of cargo traffic and the 10th busiest airport by traffic movements.

History

The airport was planned to be constructed in three phases. The first phase of construction started in July 1997, and was completed and opened for traffic on December 30, 2000. It replaced the old Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport, which was a dual-use civil and military airfield. In March 2004, the airport officially became an international airport after immigration and customs facilities were built and put into service.

The airport was a hub of CNAC Zhejiang. After the airlines' merger with Air China
Air China
Air China is the flag carrier and one of the major airlines of the People's Republic of China. Based in Beijing Capital International Airport, Air China is the world's 10th largest airline by fleet size. The airline ranked behind its main competitors China Southern Airlines and China Eastern...

, the latter inherited the Hangzhou hub.

UFO appearance

On the evening of 9 July 2010, the airport was shut down for an hour when an unidentified flying object
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...

 was detected.

Air traffic control could not locate it on radar and prudently waved off landing flights. Eighteen flights were affected. Though normal operations resumed four hours later, the incident captured the attention of the Chinese media and sparked a firestorm of speculation on the UFO's identity.

Facilities

Phase One of the airport occupies 7260 acres (29.4 km²) of land. It has a capacity of eight million passengers and 110,000 tons of cargo a year, and can handle aircraft as large as the Boeing 747-400
Boeing 747-400
The Boeing 747-400 is a major development and the best-selling model of the Boeing 747 family of jet airliners. While retaining the four-engine wide-body layout of its predecessors, the 747-400 embodies numerous technological and structural changes to produce a more efficient airframe...

. It has one runway of 3,600m in length and 45m in width. The passenger terminal can handle 3,600 passengers an hour and is 100,000 square metres in size (including an underground parking of 22,000 square metres). The departure level has 36 ticket counters, including 12 in the international side of the terminal. There are 2,900 seats in the departure lounge. The immigration and customs area occupies 9,500 sq. metre of terminal space.

The apron occupies 340,000 square metres of land, and there are 12 jetway
Jetway
A jet bridge is an enclosed, movable connector which extends from an airport terminal gate to an airplane, allowing passengers to board and disembark without having to go outside...

s and 18 departure gates.

Maintenance facilities are certified to perform B-Check on all types of aircraft and C-Check on Boeing 737
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...

 and Boeing 757
Boeing 757
The Boeing 757 is a mid-size, narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Passenger versions of the twinjet have a capacity of 186 to 289 persons and a maximum range of , depending on variant and cabin configuration...

 aircraft.

Transportation

The Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Expressway has an exit at the airport.

There are airport buses to downtown Hangzhou and Xiaoshan as well as to prefectures further away such as Yiwu
Yiwu
Yiwu is a city of about 1.2 million people in central Zhejiang Province near the central eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. The city is famous for its small commodity trade and vibrant free markets and is a regional tourist destination...

.

Passenger

Cargo Carriers

See also


External links

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