Published : 2024-09-16

On September 16, 1999, Shanghai Pudong International Airport (上海浦東國際機場) officially opened for operations.

With the takeoff of Shanghai Airlines' FM451 flight to Kunming, Yunnan, the Pudong International Airport, covering an area of 30 square kilometres, officially came into use. Shanghai became the first city in China with two international airports operating simultaneously.

Pudong Airport completed selection of location in February 1994. The planned area was 44.4 square kilometres, about 30 kilometres away from the city centre's People's Square.

The phase one project covers an area of 12 square kilometres, with a total investment exceeding 13 billion CNY, making it the largest infrastructure project in Shanghai at that time.

The phase one project comprises a 4,000-metre long, 60-metre wide runway, two 4,000-metre parallel taxiways, and an 800,000 square metre apron for cargo and overnight parking.

According to the design, the terminal building's area is 280,000 square metres, and the annual passenger capacity is 20 million.

For China at that time, Pudong Airport was the first construction of such a massive airport. Therefore, the airport opened design tenders worldwide.

After several rounds of evaluations, the final adopted design was Paul Andreu's "Kunpeng Wings", from French company Aéroports de Paris.

The first terminal was themed "Sky," standing like a soaring roc. The four curved steel structures of the terminal building represented its most distinctive spatial view, and its overall shape resembles a seagull in flight, symbolising Shanghai's rise in the new century.