Tianjin airport will build another six off-site departure stations by the end of this year in Tianjin, Beijing and Hebei province, as well as one in Dezhou, Shandong province, a city included in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration blueprint, local authorities said.

New stations in Hebei will be built in Tangshan and Qinhuangdao.

The new facilities will increase the total number of off-site departure stations or lounges of Tianjian airport to 20.

Passengers can check in at these lounges instead going through the check-in procedure at the airport, which is usually more crowded.

"We expect more passengers in these cities will depart from Tianjin thanks to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration plan," said Yan Xin, general manager of the airport.

"The new lounges will definitely make travel more convenient, as passengers will have more choices."

The Shijiazhuang airport, the largest in Hebei province, has also set up 11 off-site departure stations, including one at Beijing West Railway Station.

The Tianjin airport will also reimburse passengers departing from Tianjin for the cost of their high-speed train tickets from Tangshan in Hebei province, in addition to the Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway, Yan said.

Antoine Rostworowski, director of facilitation and information technology for Airports Council International, said the fast-growing Chinese economy has provided great momentum for the development of civil aviation, and China is now the world's second-largest market.

Beijing Capital International Airport was the world's second-busiest airport in 2014, receiving about 86 million passengers, behind the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's 96 million in the United States.

Domestically in 2014, Tianjin was ranked 24th with 12 million, while Shijiazhuang was 37th with 5.6 million.

A new airport will be built in southern Beijing's Daxing district to ease pressure on the main airport and better coordinate transportation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

The new airport, which is expected to be completed in 2019, will include the world's largest terminal at 700,000 square meters, and will process 45 million passengers a year, or 125,000 people per day.

Meanwhile, more than 20 intercity lines will be added to the railway map in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region over the next several decades, according to a report released last week by the regional transportation evaluation authority.

Zhang Yu contributed to this story.

tangyue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 10/01/2015 page4)