The State Council and the Central Military Commission Approves the Construction of the Shache Airport

The State Council of the P.R.C (the “State Council”) and the Central Military Commission have approved the construction project of the Shache Airport in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The total investment to the project has been budgeted at 541 million yuan, which will be raised by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (the NDRC), the Civil Aviation Administration of China (the CAAC) and the Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The Shache Airport will be built as a domestic regional airport, located approximately 20 km from the Shache county seat.

The obstruction clearance conditions of the site where the airport will be constructed are very good, and the geographical conditions meet the requirements of the airport’s short-term construction and long-term development. The items to be constructed in the project include: a category 4C flight zone, a 3 km long runway, a terminal area planned to accommodate 200 thousand passengers and 8.3 million tons of cargo and mail annually by the year 2020, a 3 thousand square meter terminal building, a tarmac with 4 parking bays, and auxiliary installations for communications, navigation, meteorological observation, power supply, water supply, fuel supply and firefighting and rescue, etc..

The airport’s construction has been planned to last for three years. Civil aircraft such as the Airbus A320, Boeing 737, Embraer ERJ, and Bombardier CRJ series, as well as Chinese-made aircraft such as the MA60, ARJ21-700, and C919 will be suited for operation into the airport. The airport will operate flights no longer than 1,300 km (the distance from Shache to Urumqi). Once completed, flights operating the Shache-Urumqi, Shache-Korla, Shache-Yining and Shache-Aksu routes will be opened first.