A second airport in Beijing is expected to start construction within this year to ease the traffic pressure on the capital airport, a senior official said.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has chosen to build the new airport in Daxing District, southern Beijing, Wang Changshun, deputy head of CAAC, told METRO at the sidelines of an annual working conference Wednesday.

The plan now awaits a final nod from the State Council, China’s cabinet, he added.  

The administration has already listed the project among 25 important airport projects that will be carried out this year.

Earlier reports said the second capital airport is scheduled to open in 2015 to ease the traffic pressure on the Beijing International Capital Airport.

As the capital airport handled 65 million passengers last year, ranking fourth in the world in the term of passenger throughput, “only some three years’ are left before the passenger flow hits maximum capacity”, Dong Zhiyi, the airport’s general manager, said.

The airport is designed to handle 78 million passengers with all three terminals combined, with the maximum set at 85 million passengers, he said.

“We look forward to the second airport being completed as early as possible to ease our pressure,” he said.

More importantly, Li Jiaxiang, head of CAAC, said the capital airport lacks the air space for expansion.

The 25 projects of airport construction and expansion, including the second capital airport, are part of the 90 billion yuan that CAAC forecast would be poured on fixed asset investment this year.

Last year, the industry accomplished an investment of 60 billion yuan on fixed assets, a CAAC report said.

The statistics showed that the industry carried 230 million passengers and 4.46 million tons of cargo last year, up by 19.7 percent and 9.3 percent respectively year-on-year. The entire industry earned 12.2 billion yuan in profit.

The report expects the industry to carry 260 million passengers and 4.98 million tons of cargo this year.

Facing a weak global economy and the sluggish travel market, the CAAC also tightened its control on airline fleet expansion last year as the air transport fleet grew by only 158 new planes, 40 planes short of the original plan, Wang Changshun said.

This year, the CAAC will continue stringent control on airline purchases of new planes and will strictly examine applicants wanting to establish new airlines, he said.