BEIJING: When the first flight from a new airport in Hunan province’s Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture took off for Beijing on Aug 18, it was a big day for 48-year-old Yang Chaowen.
Yang, from the prefecture’s Shibadong village, had never flown before and it was also his first trip to the capital. Yang, who traveled with his wife, said that thanks to the opening of Xiangxi Biancheng Airport, just 15 km from Shibadong, they could take the flight “right from their home”.
“We were extremely excited to be able to take the first airplane from Xiangxi, and we feel proud and happy,” he said. Having an airport near home used to be unimaginable for the villagers, as the village was still mired in extreme poverty just a decade ago.
Nestled among the mountains of the prefecture, the airport is shaped like a phoenix spreading its wings. It covers 235 hectares and was built with a total investment of nearly 2.9 billion yuan ($401.8 million).
The terminal building covers 11,000 square meters, and the runway is 2,600 meters long, with five aircraft stands. The airport can handle aircraft such as Boeing 738s and Airbus A321s and was designed to handle 300,000 passengers a year, traveling on 3,571 departing and arriving aircraft. Yang used to sell fruit and vegetables, but as the local infrastructure was very poor, a single trip to the township took more than two hours. Later, he went to the provinces of Guangdong and Zhejiang to find work. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
