Beijing’s brand-new International Airport completed

Construction works have been completed in the brand-new Beijing Daxing International Airport which will officially open on September 2019.

The new facility will be able to carry around 72 million people by 2025 and 100 million by 2040, alleviating the congestion in the existing International airport of China's capital. Its capacity will be similar to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States, the world's busiest airport today. In total, 630,000 flights will be conducted annually.

The facility will open on China's Communist government's 70th anniversary in power. “The new airport is a landmark project for China’s 70th anniversary of National Day, built to very high standards. It’ll help optimize flight schedules from Beijing and attract more passengers,” Ivan Zhou, an analyst with BOC (Bank of China) International Holdings, stated.

The new airport will be the largest single-terminal ever accomplished. The terminal building and the Ground Transportation Centre will cover a total area of 780,000m2. Its cost will reach about $11.7 billion and will be located 46 kilometers south of Beijing's center.

With its completion, Beijing enters a small group of cities, including New York, Tokyo, London and Rome that have more than one international airports.

China is highly investing in the aviation industry which has experienced significant development in the last years. 1.26 billion passengers used Chinese airport transportation in 2018, 774 million more than in 2008 (11% growth annually). "Historically, China's domestic market dwarfed international services, but airlines have been rapidly stretching their wings in the past decade, thanks to the country's reform and opening-up policy, as well as people's soaring outbound tourism demands," Li Xiaojin, a professor of aviation economics at Civil Aviation University of China in Tianjin, stated.

According to officials, the purpose of China is to build more than 200 more airports in the forthcoming years and will have about 450 by 2035.

Sources: Bloomberg.com Chinadaily.com khl.com