Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) yesterday inked two contracts totaling some US$300 million to scale up its passenger transport and baggage-handling abilities.

The two contracts were signed with the Canada-based Bombardier and the German company Siemens.

The move, a critical part of the airport's expansion project, aims to primarily meet the surging air transport demands during the Beijing Olympic Games in three years.

Both projects are expected to go operational by the end of 2007, to serve the new No. 3 terminal at BCIA.

Bombardier, boasting 50 years of business relationship with China, was awarded the US$89 million contract for the design and supply of an Automated People Mover (APM) system. The APM project is the first automated passenger transport system on Chinese mainland. It includes all the electrical and mechanical construction for the 2-kilometre system, which is designed with Bombardier's advanced technology to transport 4,100 passengers per hour, said company sources.

The other US$216 million contract for the supply of an advanced baggage handling system (BHS) was won by Siemens Logistics and Assembly.

The BHS system at BCIA, the most advanced and complicated baggage handling facility in China, has a designed capacity of 19,200 pieces of baggage per hour for, according to sources at Beijing airport.

(China Daily May 21, 2005)