The new Beijing airport, pictured here in September 2017, will open in September 2019. (Photo by JU HUANZONG / Xinhua vis China Daily)
BEIJING — Beijing’s new international airport will start operation on Sept. 30, 2019, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Friday.
All airport engineering projects will be completed by the end of June next year, Feng Zhenglin, head of the administration, said at a meeting in Beijing.
Construction of fuel supply storage will be finished in April, and all highway routes under construction are expected to open to traffic in June, Feng said.
The as-yet unnamed airport, located 46 km south of downtown Beijing, is designed to take pressure off the overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeastern suburbs.
It will sit on the junction of Beijing’s Daxing district and Langfang, a city in Hebei province. It’s 67 km from Beijing Capital International Airport and 85 km from Tianjin Binhai International Airport.
According to the administration, airfield construction is nearly complete and the road overpass was fully connected on May 25.
China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines will be the main carriers at the airport. The construction of designated airline spaces will be completed by September next year, Feng said.
The roof of the main terminal building was sealed on New Year’s Eve and internal decorations and installation of electromechanical equipment are underway.
The main terminal building, covering 313,000 square meters, the size of 44 soccer fields, consists of a central hub and five arms resembling a phoenix spreading out its wings.
The new airport’s construction began at the end of 2014. By 2025 it’s expected the airport will handle 72 million passenger trips, 620,000 departures and arrivals, and 2 million metric tons of cargo and mail annually.
In the long run, the new airport will have seven runways and be able to handle up to 100 million passengers and 4 million metric tons of cargo and mail each year.
From the center area to the farthest gate a passenger will need to walk less than 8 minutes to cover a distance of 600 meters.
Currently, Beijing has two airports that serve commercial flights – Beijing Capital International Airport, which has three runways, and Beijing Nanyuan Airport, with one. /atm