The Prime Minister of Pakistan would open the country’s largest Airport in Islamabad later this month, more than a decade after construction work started.
“Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will inaugurate Islamabad’s new international airport on April 20,” Sher Ali, a spokesperson for the aviation division, told dpa on Tuesday.
More than 500 people, including diplomats and politicians, as well as figures from business and civil society, would attend the ceremony, he said.
Until now, there has been no international airport in the Pakistani capital.
An air-force base with a single runway is currently used for domestic and international air travel.
The airport was at first expected to cost 311 million dollars.
This estimate has been revised several times since and currently stands at around 700 million dollars, Ali said.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the project took place in April 2007.
Several completion deadlines have been missed since then.
Alleged mismanagement, misappropriation of funds and the repeated delays have sparked criticism and media scrutiny of the project.
A domestic flight of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) would be the first to touch down at the new airport on the day of the inauguration, Ali said.
The new airport spans 4,300 acres of land and would be able to handle the world’s biggest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380.
With a passenger-handling capacity of 9 million people per annum, the airport is similar to Marseille airport in France.
Large airports like Dubai International Airport handle around 80 million passengers per annum.
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