Shanghai Pudong International Airport will welcome its 50 millionth passenger this week. A grand ceremony will be held to mark the important milestone in Terminal 2 of the airport on Dec 19, according to officials.

Pudong Airport is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. The airport opened for service on September 16, 1999 with the first departure flight FM451 of Shanghai Airlines, making Shanghai the first city in China with two civil airports.

Last year it handled a total of 47.19 million passengers, 371,200 flight movements, as well as 2.91 million tons of cargo and mail. Pudong International Airport has been the world's third busiest airport for cargo trafficr six years in a row.

The airport has two passenger terminals and 4 runways. Terminal 1 has a capacity of 36.8 million passengers and Terminal 2 is designed to handle 40 million passengers, according to the airport.

Currently, the airport serves 24 domestic airlines and 70 international (regional) airlines, with connections to 85 domestic destinations and 109 international (regional) destinations.