Beijing has opened its second international airport, Beijing Daxing, and in the coming years will vie for the title of busiest airport in the world. Currently, that title belongs to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport but Beijing has serious ambitions for Daxing.
Inside Beijing Daxing. Image by Wikimedia Commons
After taking just five years to construct, Daxing will be further expanded in the years to come to eventually service 100 million passengers annually. Once fully completed, the airport will be billed as the world’s most expensive and world’s largest single terminal building, at a cost of $25 billion USD and 100 million square meters.
The first plane to fly from Beijing Daxing was a China Southern Airlines Airbus A380 on Wednesday afternoon going to the southern province of Guangdong.
Daxing is intended to alleviate strain on Beijing Capital Airport (PEK) and will house both domestic and international flights. China Southern and China Eastern will be primary tenants, but international carriers will also either entirely move their Beijing operations to Daxing, or operate at both airports.
The airport is supposed to be in the shape of a phoenix, though to some observers it is more like a starfish or alien. Daxing was designed by late Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid.
Here is a video tour of the new Beijing mega-airport, courtesy of CNN.
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