"Flower Crown of the Goat City" in Full Bloom: Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Terminal 3 Put into Operation

Video Produced by Tan Zhijia

On October 30th, Terminal 3 and the fifth runway of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport were officially put into operation. Thus far, the third phase of the airport expansion project, which underwent five years of construction with a total investment of 53.77 billion yuan, has been completed and put into operation as scheduled. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has officially entered the era of "five runways + three terminals" operation.

This expansion makes Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport the first civil aviation airport in China to operate with five commercial runways. In the near term, it can meet the demand for an annual passenger throughput of 120 million and a cargo and mail throughput of 3.8 million tons. Its terminal capacity can even handle 140 million passengers and 6 million tons of cargo and mail per year, placing it among the world's top in both passenger and cargo scales.

As a national key project during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period to implement the requirement of "building a world-class airport cluster" in the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Terminal 3 of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport fully integrates "Chinese style, Lingnan charm, international vibe, and contemporary feel" in its design and construction. With "flower" as the design theme, it incorporates Guangzhou's characteristics of "Yunshan Zhushui" and "Flower City". Its architectural shape resembles a blooming flower, forming the architectural image of "Flower Crown of the Goat City" and becoming a new landmark of Guangzhou's urban gateway.

According to reports, Terminal 3 has set multiple "firsts" in China. It is the first in the country to feature a panoramic aviation observation platform and observation tower, the first large-scale airport terminal with a warm color scheme, the first airport to establish a large-scale public art system, the first to build flagship restrooms, the first to construct an ancient tree park, the largest airside original garden among domestic terminals, and the first terminal to establish a botanical garden.

In addition, the BIM (Building Information Modeling) application in the Phase III expansion of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has pioneered the intelligent construction of large-scale hub airports in the industry. It is the first large-scale hub airport in China to fully apply BIM intelligent construction, realizing full-staff, full-area, full-professional, and full-life-cycle management. A number of construction techniques and technologies are the first of their kind in China, such as the first terminal with a continuously colored welded stainless steel roof, the first airport to adopt a medium-spacing runway with a 915m interval, the first airport to adopt a 172.5m runway-taxiway interval, the first airport to use a shield tunneling method to cross three operational runways, and the first airport in China's civil aviation sector to pilot prefabricated runway pavement. These achievements have set a "Chinese benchmark" for the intelligent construction of large-scale airports worldwide. (Text by Che Yuanyuan Sun Zhuo, Photo by Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport)