Officially opened on September 22, the new Beijing Daxing airport has really started to be fully operational yesterday, October 27.
Indeed, until now, in a logic of “soft opening” aiming at testing all the devices in operational conditions, only China United airline has used Daxing during the last 5 weeks and it is only yesterday that other airlines have started to move their flights to this new platform.
Update on air transport in Beijing
Today, Beijing’s airports handle nearly 100 million passengers a year, divided between the historic Beijing Nanyuan Airport and the more recent Beijing Capital Airport. The need for a new, more modern airport capable of handling the expected growth in traffic was identified more than ten years ago, allowing the Chinese authorities to avoid a race against time.
Today, Daxing joins Beijing Capital with its 76 million passenger capacity, while Nanyuan (109 years old!) closed its doors on September 25 to become a museum.
Daxing: a capacity of 100 million passengers!
Daxing is expected to handle 45 million passengers in its first year with forecasts of 72 million in 2025 and 100 million in 2040! As a reminder, the current capacity of Roissy is 80 million (for an actual traffic of 69 million to date). This was needed to supplement Beijing Capital, which is the second busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic in the world after Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson.
With its 700,000 m2 it is the largest airport in the world.
A gigantic terminal designed for the passenger
This year has already seen the opening of another mega airport in Istanbul to replace the old Ataturk airport. But it is not unanimously supported. Yes it is superb and pleasant and it’s night and day compared to “before” but its layout means that the doors can be very far apart and that the passenger sometimes has to walk a long way, I’ve often experienced this this year, sometimes even having to give up on the passage to the lounge despite a comfortable connection time.
Daxing is designed in the shape of a starfish.
The promise is that no gate is more than 600m from the security checkpoint and a maximum of 8 minutes walk from the center of the airport to the furthest gate.
In any case, in a style naturally different from Istanbul, the airport designed by the architectural firm Zaha Hadid looks both beautiful and very functional.
Hub war for Skyteam and Star Alliance
Which airlines will move from Beijing Capital to Daxing? Daxing will be the hub of China Eastern and logically the Skyteam airlines will follow and settle there, including Air France and KLM. Daxing will become a mega-hub for Skyteam.
Although leaving Skyteam at the end of the year, it seems that China Southern will also leave for Daxing.
British Airways is also leaving Beijing Capital, but the absence of a Chinese airline in OneWorld means that the alliance, even if it consolidates in Daxing, cannot claim to be a real hub, at most an optimized connecting platform.
It is possible that some airlines choose to operate from both airports.
The result of all this: Star Alliance is virtually alone in Beijing Capital and will be able to optimize its use for the benefit of its members.
Daxing: An easily accessible airport
The airport is located 45 minutes from downtown Beijing. The Chinese did not put the cart before the horse and an express train line running at 250 km/h connects the city center to the airport in 25 minutes. Later a line will connect Daxing to Beijing Capital.
Bottom line: we just want to test it!
It is difficult to reconcile the gigantism of a hub with the convenience for the passenger, but this is the promise that Daxing makes and seems to keep. All we ask is to test. With a cost of 12 billion dollars, it would have been a shame to miss out.
Photo : Beijing Daxing by lazy dragon via Shutterstock
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