NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants designs world’s largest airport

NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants, a member of the DHV Group, has designed the winning master plan for the world’s largest airport. The Beijing New International Airport (BNIA) will be built in the Chinese capital of Beijing. With a capacity to handle up to 130 million annual passengers, the airport will have a total of eight runways. NACO won the design competition held between top airport consultants from around the world.

The current airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, will be reaching its design capacity within a few years, making the need for a new airport imminent. The Beijing New International Airport is scheduled to open in 2017.

Rik Krabbendam, Managing Director of NACO: “NACO did it again! After winning the design competition for the master plan and the largest terminal in the World at the existing Beijing Capital International Airport, NACO proves to be successful again. Since the new airport will predominantly handle domestic traffic, the challenge was to fit in 100 million passenger movements on the landside areas of the new airport.”

NACO paid special attention to sustainability when designing the master plan for the new airport. Incorporated into the design are all modes of public transport (including high speed trains, metro and inter-airport trains) which will be processed in a Ground Transportation Centre in front of the new terminals. The layout of the runways, taxiways and aprons have been carefully designed to keep taxi distances as short as possible, thereby lessening fuel burn and CO2 emissions. The Beijing New International Airport will be trend setting for future mega airports.

The existing Beijing Terminal Building 3 was also designed by NACO after winning the design competition in 2003 together with a Joint Venture of international architects and engineers.

“Once more it is proven that the Dutch are world leading in the transport sector” Roel Overakker, Chairman of the DHV Business Group Aviation. “With this success we have strengthened our expert position in airport planning and design”.