YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th December, 2019) SAKHALINSK, Russia, December 5 (Sputnik) - Authorities of Russia's Sakhalin region want to turn a new airport on the island into a major transportation hub connecting the Russian Far East with Asia and America, Sakhalin Governor Valery Limarenko said on Thursday.
The construction of a new airport in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk began in 2017 and expected to be completed by the end of 2020.
"We are going to become a transportation hub. We are going to fly from this location to a distance of 7,000-8,000 kilometers [4,350-5,000 miles]. And now we are creating a large investment project together with large network companies that operate in Russia. We want a passenger and cargo hub here. This should become the locations, where people gather from the entire Far East, and then fly to different places across the globe - China, Korea, Japan, America... We want to have 5 million passengers per year," Limarenko told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Russia Tourism Week forum.
The governor noted that apart from the airport's building, the authorities planned to build an anti-seismic runway that would allow planes to land in any weather.
The region's capital, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, is hosting the Eastern Russia Tourism Week forum from December 2-8. The event features sessions dedicated to promotion of tours to the region in China, Japan and South Korea.
