OREANDA-NEWS. September 21, 2010. Basic Element holds the official opening ceremony today for the new terminal complex at Sochi International Airport. This state-of-the-art terminal is the first key facility to be commissioned for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and is a crucial phase in preparing the airport for this major event.

The new terminal complex, which is already operating and handling passengers on both domestic and international flights, is equipped with the latest engineering systems and technological equipment, ensuring the highest degree of safety and comfort. Particular emphasis was put on ecology and resource efficiency when building the terminal.

Oleg Deripaska, Chief Executive Officer of Basic Element, said:

"This is a major event not just for Basic Element as the investor and builder for the new airport terminal complex and several other Sochi 2014 Olympic sites, but also for the main Russian resort city of Sochi and the Krasnodar Territory, as a modern airport is a key element of the region's future prosperity. I would also like to emphasize the important role in this success played by our partners, without whom the project would have been impossible."

Dmitry Chernyshenko, President of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, commented:

"The new air gateway is what will give our guests - the tourists, sportsmen and women, official delegations and spectators who fly in from all over the world - their first impressions of the Olympic Sochi. The atmosphere that reigns in the city during the Games will also go some way to determining how good those impressions are."

The new terminal complex boosts the airport's passenger throughput capacity from 900 to 1,600 passengers per hour. In 2012, when the airport finger with its ten telescopic gangways is completed, the airport will be able to handle up to 2,500 passengers per hour, rising, in time for the Olympics, to 3,800, in full keeping with International Olympic Committee requirements.

Overall investment in the airport terminal was 6.2 billion rubles. Vnesheconombank was a key lender.