The Taoyuan International Airport Corp has started an environmental impact assessment on a third runway project, and hopes that work on the runway will be completed by 2025, the company said yesterday.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications last year moved up the completion date of the third runway from 2030 to 2025 in an effort to meet growing air transportation demands.

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) process has also been activated ahead of schedule, the company said.

The process will take about 30 months to complete, it added.

The third runway, measuring 4,000m, is to be on the north side of the airport and is to run parallel to the airport’s other two runways.

It is to be longer than both the 3,600m south runway and the 3,800m north runway, the company said.

The airport’s annual traffic topped 40 million passengers on Dec. 13 last year for the first time in the facility’s 37-year history.

However, the airport’s two terminals have a combined capacity of only 32 million passengers per year, prompting the company to require construction of an additional smaller terminal before the completion of terminal expansion and construction projects to cope with the rapid increase in traffic volume.

The company has begun a project to expand Terminal Two, which is scheduled to be completed in 2020 and start operations in 2021.

Construction on a third terminal has also started, but it is not expected to be completed until 2020. (Source: China Post)