Pudong to handle international flights

Pudong to handle international flights

BEIJING: China's largest city Shanghai will direct all international flights to its state-of-the-art Pudong Airport to boost disappointing traffic volume, state media said Saturday.

Officials will start transferring international flights from the older Hongqiao Airport to Pudong Airport next month, and by October Hongqiao will be an exclusively domestic airport, Xinhua news agency said.

Pudong Airport, which opened in 1999, currently gets less than 30 percent of total air passenger transport in and out of Shanghai, Xinhua reported.

The main reason is that Pudong Airport is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from downtown Shanghai, while the distance to Hongqiao is a much shorter 24 kilometers (15 miles), according to the agency. -- AFP