Sheremetyevo Moscow airport presented its development program for the next few years. The most important project is construction of new terminal north of the airfield; the construction should be started in spring, Travel.ru reports.
The new terminal will be constructed in place of Sheremetyevo-1 (B), which has already been put out of operation. The first stage of the project includes construction of a major part of the terminal and railway station, as well as new line connecting the terminal with the existing railway located east of the airport; the works should be completed in late 2017 – prior to the start of 2018 FIFA World Cup.
It is expected that the Aeroexpress trains will depart from Belorussky Railway Station to Sheremetyevo airport four times per hour, but two of them will head to the existing station located near south terminals while the rest two ones – to the new north station. So a passenger may travel to any terminal twice an hour. However, it is planned to build a tunnel connecting south and north terminals. An automatic train working in this tunnel will be available to all the passengers. For transit passengers, minimum connecting time between the two groups of terminals will be reduced to 45 minutes (almost three times).
Judging by the presented airport maps one end of the tunnel will be located between Sheremetyevo-3 (D) and E terminals and the second one – between new north terminal and the existing Terminal C. Another tunnel will be constructed for transportation of luggage. Presumably, the new north station, as well as the south one, will be placed on an overhead road located above a bypass road, which should be expanded to two lanes in order to avoid traffic jams. This work will be started next year. Parking and hotels will be constructed near the station.
In addition, the construction of third runway is underway in Sheremetyevo. It is located northwest of the operated runways behind Sheremetyevskoye shosse (Sheremetyevo highway).
In 2023 the new north terminal will be joined with the existing Terminal C, which services charter flights. After that its capacity should reach 35 million passengers per year (at present the total passenger traffic of the airport is around 30 million passengers). The project for construction of another new terminal located near Sheremetyevo-2 (F) in order to replace the existing Terminal E has been postponed: the new north terminal will provide required capacity for years to come. The airport is not going to construct a terminal for low-cost carriers.
Sheremetyevo is willing to attract a second global alliance. At present the airport generally services airlines of SkyTeam alliance, including Aeroflot. Upon completion of construction of the north terminal these airlines should move to the new terminal, while south terminals will be available to another alliance. We remind you that oneworld alliance operates most of its flights from Domodedovo airport, base airport of S7 Airlines (member of oneworld), and the flights performed by Star Alliance (has no Russian partners yet) are operated at Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports (few of its airlines operate flights from Sheremetyevo).
