Item from China Daily on Sept 17, 1999: An airfield guard waits near a Boeing 767 from Shanghai Airlines, which flew 260 passengers to Kunming in Yunnan province yesterday during the maiden flight from the new Pudong International Airport.

The airport's opening marks Shanghai as the first Chinese city to have two civilian airports. The other facility is Hongqiao International Airport.

The new airport is expected to handle 126,000 flights, 20 million passengers and 750,000 tons of cargo annually.

Pudong International Airport handled 28.99 million passengers in the first five months of this year, according to the East China Air Traffic Management Bureau.

Together with Hongqiao International Airport, which handled 19.16 million passengers in the five months, Pudong's airport helped Shanghai surpass Beijing to become the largest Chinese aviation hub. Beijing Capital International Airport handled 44.07 million passengers during the same period.

Pudong International Airport served more than 51 million passengers last year, making it the third-busiest airport on the Chinese mainland and the 19th busiest in the world.

The airport also handled 3.18 million metric tons of cargo and mail, ranking third in the world.

The airport's second runway opened in March 2005.

(China Daily 09/17/2015 page2)