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Reconstruction of Sochi Olympics standby airport enters final phase

The throughput capacity of the airport will increase to 450 passengers an hour, which is 2.5 times more than at present

KRASNODAR, May 29 (Itar-Tass) — Reconstruction of the airport in the Black Sea beach city of Gelendzhik, which has been entrusted with the role of a standby airport during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, has entered the final phase that includes the erection of an up-to-date air terminal compound, a source at Gelendzhik municipality told Itar-Tass Monday.

"The throughput capacity of the airport will increase to 450 passengers an hour, which is 2.5 times more than at present," he said, adding that the air terminal is due to be commissioned for operations in 2013.

The airport reopened June 5, 2010, after the first phase of the reconstruction that had lasted five years. During that period of time, a new building of the air traffic control tower united in a single block with the emergency and rescue station was built and new service lines and installations were installed or assembled.

The element that the revamped airport got in the first phase of the upgrade project was a runway 3,100 meters long and 60 meters wide. After its commissioning the Gelendzhik airport can service the jets of any types operated by airlines today.

All the works have been carried out as part of the 'Civil Aviation' sub-program of the Federal Special-Purpose Program Modernization of Russia's Transport System."

This is the first time that the mechanism of a private-public partnership has been used in this country to build an airport.

During the summer time, about nine flights a day will be taking off from Gelenzhik to take passengers to the destinations like Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, and some other cities in Siberia and the Urals.

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