New Islamabad airport should be named after Benzair Bhutto, PAC agrees

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday unanimously agreed that the new international Islamabad airport should also be named after former prime minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.

The PAC meeting, chaired by Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, discussed the name of the new Islamabad airport which was inaugurated in May last year.

All members of the PAC agreed to name the new airport after the assassinated leader in order to honor her memory, like the old airport of the twin cities.

“At PAC when records of ‘Islamabad Airport’ showed the original name of ‘New Benazir Bhutto International Airport’ all members across the political board endorsed our advice to revert to the right name of the airport. Govt please take note. SMBenazir Bhutto is Pakistan’s pride,” Pakistan Peoples Party’s Senator Sherry Rehman tweeted after the meeting.

At PAC when records of “Islamabad Airport” showed the original name of “New Benazir Bhutto International Airport” all members across the political board endorsed our advice to revert to the right name of the airport. Govt please take note. SMBenazir Bhutto is Pakistan’s pride. pic.twitter.com/jzmjNWYTEL

— SenatorSherryRehman (@sherryrehman) January 31, 2019

The new Islamabad airport was inaugurated on May 1 in 2018, after months of delay. The new airport is located 30km away from central Islamabad, and its construction work had started in April 2007.

The airport has a modular design which enables it to handle nine million passengers and 50,000 metric tons of cargo initially.

The “Y” shaped new airport spreads over 19 square kilometers with 15 jetties (passenger boarding bridges), including facilities to accommodate two double-deck A380, the world’s largest airplane, 15 remote bays and seven remote bays for small aircraft such as ATRs. It will be the biggest international airport in the country in terms of landing and passenger handling facilities. For the 15 bays, the same number of lounges have been built to avoid mixing of passengers. The new airport has two runways each 3.5 km long.

It has a passenger friendly terminal, two runways, three taxiways and a cargo apron which can accommodate large and small aircrafts.