Construction started this morning on the world's largest satellite terminal building at the Pudong International Airport to provide a faster transferring service and enhance the punctuality rate.

With 83 departure gates and about 120 new aprons, the third terminal, including S1 and S1 will cover a total of 620,000 square meters, even larger than the Terminal 2 building that is 490,000 square meters.

The new terminal will make the Pudong airport capable of serving 80 million passengers a year. And the airport would become one of the world's top three after its completion in 2019 in terms of traffic.

Passengers will be able to check in at one of the two existing terminal buildings and then take an underground subway to get to the new facility, said Li Derun, president of the Shanghai Airport Authority.

The subway project is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.

By 2020, after renovations and new additions, the Pudong airport will be able to handle 80 million passengers and 4.7 million tons of cargo per year.