BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — Lebanon’s Interior Minister Raya El Hassan said Tuesday that Beirut’s new airport will be opened in June 2019, the National News Agency reported. “We will try to launch the new airport within a few months from now in a bid to facilitate the lives of people traveling through the airport,” Hassan said during her tour with Public Works and Transportation Minister Youssef Fenianos at the airport to supervise the work being implemented in the location. Hassan said that the airport should be ready to receive tourists during the summer. Officials have on many occasions called for expansion of Rafic Hariri International Airport (RHIA) in addition to buying new equipment for the establishment in a bid to cater to an increased number of passengers. Last year, Lebanese Finance Ministry approved 18 million U.S. dollars in funding for the expansion of RHIA. The funding came following a steady increase in the passenger number at the airport since 2008, according to a study released by the airport’s Research and Studies Department in March 2018. The study predicted that as many as 10 million passengers would travel via the RHIA by 2020 while the airport has the capacity of hosting only six million passengers annually.