Beijing Daxing Airport Is Now Open and It Has the World's Largest Terminal

In order to keep efficiency at the forefront of its operations, the furthest gate to the central security check zone is a short eight-minute walk, or 600 meters (1,970 feet). 

 

 

 

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? Beijing Daxing International Airport ,located on the border of Beijing and Langfang, Hebei Province, is Beijing's second international airport and is currently under construction. The first phase of the airport project is designed with a target of 72 million passengers, 2 million tons of cargo and mail, and 620,000 aircraft movements in 2025, with plans to handle 100 million passengers in the long term. The terminal building was designed by ADPI in collaboration with @ZahaHadidArchitects and other consultants.It will consist of a central hub with six curved spokes. Hong Kong design studio #Lead8 was appointed as lead designer of the commercial terminal in 2018.

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There will be more than 70 different restaurants in the airport, along with tea and coffee shops, and 36 international brands will house their stores at the airport. 

Built to ease traffic from Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA), which is notorious for delays and overcrowdedness, Daxing will begin by handling 45 million passengers a year. This number will grow to 72 million by 2025, and to 100 million by 2040. 

Daxing's location, to the south of Beijing, initially spurred criticism for being too far away from the city center. However, the 46 km (28.5 miles) journey will not be as arduous or time-consuming as travelers originally thought. An airport express train, departing every six and a half minutes from Beijing's Caoqiao station. It will only take 19 minutes to reach the airport. 

Once in the airport, the 400 self-service check-in kiosks (over 80% of all check-ins will be self-service) will make the process even faster. Furthermore, as Daxing is located to the south of the capital, 10 to 15 minutes will be slashed off of southernly directed flights. 

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, more than 600,000 jobs will be generated thanks to the new airport. 

If any of these figures weren't enough to impress you with this phenomenal feat of planning, let the following images speak for themselves — proving that Daxing is visually spectacular, inside and out. 

Daxing in pictures

The smooth and sleek look Zaha Hadid Architects went for, makes the inside of the airport look as though it belongs in a sci-fi space movie.

There are five traditional Chinese gardens at the end of each of the halls. Keeping in line with traditional Chinese architectural principles, smaller structures are based around a grand central courtyard. 

Smaller details stand out as grandiose.

The spacious interiors will allow the millions of yearly travelers to feel at ease.

The outside offers striking and smooth curves, with four different levels to ease the flow of arriving and departing passengers. 

It's early days for Daxing International Airport, but it looks like it's operating smoothly for the time being.