Dalian building World’s largest off-shore airport

The new international airport of Dalian, in Liaoning province, is under construction. This airport will be built on an artificial island in Jinzhou bay, making it the world’s largest off-shore airport. It is mainly being constructed to reduce current passenger transit at Dalian airport, the country’s most frequented northeastern air travel facility.

The project has sparked protests, mainly due to the nearby maritime natural reserve, which might suffer from the presence of the artificial island. The project’s opposing groups underline the high costs – of construction and operation- of such an airport as compared with land options. On the other side, the developers argue that the expropriation costs of a land airport would be even more expensive, and has announced that the environmental impact of the project will be low due to its location 3km out in the bay, far from the environmentally fragile coast.