Beijing’s New Daxing International Airport Is World’s Largest Airport

The new airport, dubbed Daxing, is reportedly the biggest airport in the world by surface area. It covers some 70 hectares (173 acres), but its starfish-shaped structure was purposely designed to shorten walking times for passengers. The ambitious master plan calls for the building of a total of seven runways and moving at least 100 million passengers and 4 million tons of cargo a year through the airport.

While reports vary on the construction’s cost, the AFP news agency reported expenses reached some 120 billion yuan ($16.9 billion, €15.3 billion) for the airport and another 280 billion yuan to build new rail and road links.

Travelers taking an express train from Daxing would take some 20 minutes to reach the city. Daxing is located about 46 kilometers (29 miles) south from Beijing’s downtown, which is almost twice as far as the old airport in the city’s northeast.

Set to open in late 2019, with eight runways serving 100 million passengers annually, Beijing’s Daxing International will be becoming the world’s largest airport.

For a project of this scale, there’s a planned “air transport-related economic zone,” but that’s not going to provide any relief for Chinese business aviation. Operators are expected to struggle daily for capacity at airports in China.

The existing Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) is the world’s second-busiest aviation hub and hitting full capacity, making it nearly impossible for airlines to add flights at desirable times. In 2018, more than 100 million travelers passed through its three terminals — making it only the second airport in the world to cross that passenger traffic milestone, after Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta. China is projected to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest air travel market by 2022.

Brushing aside such worries, officials say they have built more than just an airport — but rather a truly integrated transportation hub that will eventually see the high-speed rail, inter-city services, and downtown-to-airport express trains all stopping right beneath the terminal. The airport express trains, traveling at a top speed of 160 kilometers an hour (100 mph), promise to whisk arriving passengers to the city in less than 20 minutes.