The third terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA), widely known as Dhaka airport, will be partially inaugurated in a soft launch on October 7 this year.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will announce the partial opening of the terminal on that day.
However, passengers will be able to use the terminal by the end of 2024, even if it is partially inaugurated in October, said Air Vice Marshal M Mafidur Rahman, Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), during a press conference on Tuesday in the city.
He said that about 82 per cent of the work has been completed. The initial target was to finish 90 per cent of the work before the partial opening.
"We are hopeful that the work will be completed according to our plan," he said.
The prime minister inaugurated the construction work of the Tk 21.398 billion project for the third terminal of HSIA in December 2019 to enhance its capacity.
Of this amount, Tk 52.57 billion is being provided by the government, while the remaining funds come from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Japan's Mitsubishi and Fujita, along with South Korea's Samsung, are working on the construction of Terminal 3 at the Dhaka airport.
The new terminal will have an area of 542,000 square metres and the capacity to serve more than 12 million passengers annually once fully operational.
arafataradhaka@gmail.com