Beirut airport gets new passenger terminal

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Tuesday inaugurated a new passenger terminal at Beirut International Airport, in the first phase of an ambitious long-term project to renovate and expand the airport which began in 1994.

The project involves expanding the airport to accommodate six million passengers annually and simultaneously receive 30 planes by the year 2006.

The master plan, which takes into consideration projected air traffic expansion and its effect on airport capacity, aims to bring the annual capacity up to 16 million passengers by the year 2035.

A major undertaking is the provision of two new runways which will increase the handling capacity of the airport and divert air traffic from over the city of Beirut to the sea.

"Through the airport, we seek to reintroduce to the world Lebanon's cultural face and the distinctive service role for which it was known in the past," Hariri told an audience that included several cabinet ministers at the inauguration.

He added: "The inauguration we are celebrating today is only one link in a long chain of achievements that have taken place and still are."

The new terminal was built at a cost of $450 million. It was mainly financed by the Kuwait Development Fund and the European Fund for Investment.

Lebanon's Airport was badly damaged during the Lebanese civil war, which ended in 1990, particularly during the Israeli invasion of 1982.