Beijing unveils new airport, to open in 2019

KarelXWB · Mon Oct 16, 2017 12:36 pm

Beijing proudly unveils mega airport due to open in 2019:

China’s capital unveiled the “shining example” of its 80 billion yuan (£9.1 billion) new airport on Monday, tipped to become one of the world’s largest when it opens in October 2019 amid a massive infrastructure drive overseen by President Xi Jinping.

...

Representatives showed off the sprawling skeleton of “Beijing New Airport”, which is made up of 1.6 million cubic metres of concrete, 52,000 tonnes of steel and spans a total 47 sq km (18 sq miles), including runways.

It is expected to serve an initial 45 million passengers a year with an eventual capacity of 100 million, putting it on par with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

“Lined up together there’s roughly 5 km of gates,” said project spokesman Zhu Wenxin. “It’s a shining example of China’s national production capacity.”

Article
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china- ... KKBN1CL139

bunumuring · Mon Oct 16, 2017 12:38 pm

Hey guys,
Any idea of which 'foreign' airlines are going to or are likely to, use it?
Cheers,
Bunumuring

ikolkyo · Mon Oct 16, 2017 12:45 pm

bunumuring wrote:
Hey guys,
Any idea of which 'foreign' airlines are going to or are likely to, use it?
Cheers,
Bunumuring

China Southern, China Eastern and other SkyTeam airlines are expected to move to the new airport

NZ321 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:28 pm

What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital? I wonder what the new airport code is? Has it been announced?

kavok · Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:55 pm

Given the distance from Beijing, does this airport become the new Chinese Narita?

mercure1 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:01 pm

NZ321 wrote:
What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital?

PEK continues operation.

A388 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:22 pm

I thought the new terminal that was built for the Olympics not so long ago would be sufficient for the coming years. Is traffic growing at such a high pace that an entirely new airport is necessary so fast?

A388

Flighty · Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:30 pm

Beijing is pretty packed. It will be a New York City situation, only bigger.

zakuivcustom · Mon Oct 16, 2017 2:59 pm

Given the distance from Beijing, does this airport become the new Chinese Narita?

Well, not really. NRT rail access was total crap for 13 years (Initial trains only go to what's now Higashi-Narita Stn instead of all the way into the terminal), and doesn't help that the proposed Narita Shinkansen was not built b/c of all the controversy behind the eminent domain to build NRT in the first place.

Daxing airport will have rail link ready by the time it open (It's China, when they build things they build it quick) and takes about ~25 mins from the access station (Although to city center it may be another 15-20 mins).

If Shanghai can have two airports, I don't see why Beijing can't (Well, technically Beijing already has two airports, but Nanyuan is very small). It's a giant city with tons of people and is growing everyday.

panamair · Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:48 pm

NZ321 wrote:
What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital? I wonder what the new airport code is? Has it been announced?

CA and its Star Alliance partners will remain at Beijing Capital while MU and CZ will be the anchor airlines at the new Daxing airport and all Skyteam carriers will move over there. It is not quite clear where oneworld carriers will go, though AA with its new ties to CZ will most likely move to Daxing.

raylee67 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:56 pm

So the airport that started its construction after BER's terminal has failed its final building test is now set to open before BER does.

hkcanadaexpat · Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:57 pm

zakuivcustom wrote:
If Shanghai can have two airports, I don't see why Beijing can't (Well, technically Beijing already has two airports, but Nanyuan is very small). It's a giant city with tons of people and is growing everyday.

But do note that the set up in Beijing will be very different than Shanghai. In Shanghai, Hongqiao is domestic/regional and Pudong is an international elephant. In Beijing, the plan is to split carriers rather than destinations umbrella. So completely different, for better or worse. Beijing is more likely to look like what Dubai is doing than what Shanghai is doing. Also probably similar to what New York has become with United at Newark and the others at JFK (ignoring La Guardia for arguments' sake)

rnav2dlrey · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:02 pm

For someone unfamiliar with Beijing, does either airport have a clear advantage?

panamair wrote:
NZ321 wrote:
What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital? I wonder what the new airport code is? Has it been announced?

CA and its Star Alliance partners will remain at Beijing Capital while MU and CZ will be the anchor airlines at the new Daxing airport and all Skyteam carriers will move over there. It is not quite clear where oneworld carriers will go, though AA with its new ties to CZ will most likely move to Daxing.

IranianMan123 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:04 pm

And here in London, we cant make a decision on a extra runway. Seems like a good airport

spitfire82 · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:13 pm

To quote the Reuters article - "The airport will be connected to Beijing by a high speed train with a top speed of 350 km an hour, as well as an inter-city train and a major expressway."

N14AZ · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:15 pm

A388 wrote:
I thought the new terminal that was built for the Olympics not so long ago would be sufficient for the coming years. Is traffic growing at such a high pace that an entirely new airport is necessary so fast?

A388

I am not sure if terminals/gates are the bottleneck. I think the actual bottleneck is the limited number of runways, which cannot be increased. During rush-hours it takes ages from push-back until take-off.

They will construct another fourth runway east of the Terminal 3 but just a small one and it still seems not enough for the future...

zakuivcustom · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:25 pm

But do note that the set up in Beijing will be very different than Shanghai. In Shanghai, Hongqiao is domestic/regional and Pudong is an international elephant. In Beijing, the plan is to split carriers rather than destinations umbrella. So completely different, for better or worse. Beijing is more likely to look like what Dubai is doing than what Shanghai is doing. Also probably similar to what New York has become with United at Newark and the others at JFK (ignoring La Guardia for arguments' sake)

Actually makes me think more of Moscow. Aeroflot and Skyteam (plus a few carriers) at SVO, the rest at DME (There's VKO for mostly ex-USSR flights also, but I'll exclude that).

But overall, the only thing after Daxing open means is that ATL will likely retain its busiest airport crown for quite a bit longer than it would.

N14AZ · Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:25 pm

rnav2dlrey wrote:
For someone unfamiliar with Beijing, does either airport have a clear advantage?

panamair wrote:
NZ321 wrote:
What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital? I wonder what the new airport code is? Has it been announced?

CA and its Star Alliance partners will remain at Beijing Capital while MU and CZ will be the anchor airlines at the new Daxing airport and all Skyteam carriers will move over there. It is not quite clear where oneworld carriers will go, though AA with its new ties to CZ will most likely move to Daxing.

Advantageous in terms of what? As a traveller I prefer Beijing Capital because I think it’s still faster to get from the city centre to the airport. As a matter of fact, I really like the airport express, it is very convenient.

rnav2dlrey · Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:04 pm

N14AZ wrote:
rnav2dlrey wrote:
For someone unfamiliar with Beijing, does either airport have a clear advantage?

panamair wrote:

CA and its Star Alliance partners will remain at Beijing Capital while MU and CZ will be the anchor airlines at the new Daxing airport and all Skyteam carriers will move over there. It is not quite clear where oneworld carriers will go, though AA with its new ties to CZ will most likely move to Daxing.

Advantageous in terms of what? As a traveller I prefer Beijing Capital because I think it’s still faster to get from the city centre to the airport. As a matter of fact, I really like the airport express, it is very convenient.

i suppose advantageous in terms of convenience for higher-fare O/D business traffic, and perhaps also for TPAC connections in/out of mainland china.

Overthecascades · Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:16 pm

Will this allow Mu and CZ to open long haul international routes from Beijing potentially circumventing the existing policy of one airline one route?

directorguy · Tue Oct 17, 2017 4:08 pm

Good news for Beijing, and a city that size can definitely sustain two major airports plus a smaller one on the side (Nanyuan). However, was appalled at the bottlenecks within PEK T3. Queue after queue (takes around 60-75 minutes from check in to airside) plus a horrible int'l-to-int'l transit system set up. It really boggles the mind how cities build airports costing hundreds of millions of USD (if not more) but then the experience is somewhat ruined by small things like this. HKG is much more efficient.

WIederling · Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:00 pm

KarelXWB wrote:
Beijing proudly unveils mega airport due to open in 2019:

They seem to do airports in less time than Germany needs to notice anything is wrong ( at a new airport under construction).
( Then in reverse the build timeframe probably corresponds to the Chinese use window in time :-)

zakuivcustom · Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:17 pm

Good news for Beijing, and a city that size can definitely sustain two major airports plus a smaller one on the side (Nanyuan). However, was appalled at the bottlenecks within PEK T3. Queue after queue (takes around 60-75 minutes from check in to airside) plus a horrible int'l-to-int'l transit system set up. It really boggles the mind how cities build airports costing hundreds of millions of USD (if not more) but then the experience is somewhat ruined by small things like this. HKG is much more efficient.

Nanyuan will be back to military only after Daxing open. China United Airlines, the only carrier out of NAY, will moved to Daxing.

As far as PEK bottleneck goes - it's representative of China (mainland) as a whole, where the hard product is there, but they're still way behind in terms of soft product. You can see similar things in CN3 (MU/CZ/CA), where there are nice seats in, let say, first/business class. But the customer service is not there, and the food still suck :roll:

AAvgeek744 · Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:35 pm

The movement of certain airlines will see PEK drop in number of pax, just as it was closing in on ATL.

LSZH34 · Tue Oct 17, 2017 5:38 pm

IranianMan123 wrote:
And here in London, we cant make a decision on a extra runway. Seems like a good airport

Well, here in LSZH we can‘t make a decision on 400m of additional runway length on empty land...

PPVLC · Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:33 pm

IranianMan123 wrote:
And here in London, we cant make a decision on a extra runway. Seems like a good airport

Let's say they have a different regime where common people can't really discuss matters like this. I'm not sure I'd like that around here.

NichCage · Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:15 am

PEK will stay open for Star Alliance, but will other non-alliance airlines stay? I am talking about airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways, El Al, Air Mauritius, etc.

With all of SkyTeam gone from PEK, there will be quite a lot of free slots for other airlines to use.

How is Terminal 3 coping with traffic? Is the Terminal congested in needing of expansion or a replacement?

lightsaber · Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:34 am

NichCage wrote:
PEK will stay open for Star Alliance, but will other non-alliance airlines stay? I am talking about airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways, El Al, Air Mauritius, etc.

With all of SkyTeam gone from PEK, there will be quite a lot of free slots for other airlines to use.

How is Terminal 3 coping with traffic? Is the Terminal congested in needing of expansion or a replacement?

Good question. If airlines are forced to move, their host country is allowed to limit flights to that airport. Now China has political pull, so few if any will do that. In particular as new flights can be limited (for all participants) to the new airport.

Lightsaber

jupiter2 · Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:59 am

NichCage wrote:
PEK will stay open for Star Alliance, but will other non-alliance airlines stay? I am talking about airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways, El Al, Air Mauritius, etc.

With all of SkyTeam gone from PEK, there will be quite a lot of free slots for other airlines to use.

How is Terminal 3 coping with traffic? Is the Terminal congested in needing of expansion or a replacement?

I went through there earlier this year, the worse part about it is security when departing, it is a nightmare and so slow. You have to remove every piece of camera equipment from your carry on, including individual lenses, so it takes time for things like that and then you need to repack it all. Check in is fine, once you're past security, the boarding areas are huge and it's not congested at all.

The air space congestion though isn't going to be solved by a new airport and as long as the military rules the skies, the delays on the ground will continue to hamper efficient airspace use.

hongkongflyer · Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:04 am

NichCage wrote:
PEK will stay open for Star Alliance, but will other non-alliance airlines stay? I am talking about airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways, El Al, Air Mauritius, etc.

With all of SkyTeam gone from PEK, there will be quite a lot of free slots for other airlines to use.

How is Terminal 3 coping with traffic? Is the Terminal congested in needing of expansion or a replacement?

Only SkyTeam airlines will move to the new airports as the local carriers, CZ & MU have a large number of flights out of Beijing.

Once the move is done, I expect CA (and Star Alliance airlines) will stay in T3, together with oneWorld and non-alliance airlines which they are currently using T3.
For HU Group, I believe they will dominate both T1 (domestic flights) and T2 (international flights)

commavia · Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:05 am

hongkongflyer wrote:
Once the move is done, I expect CA (and Star Alliance airlines) will stay in T3, together with oneWorld and non-alliance airlines which they are currently using T3.

I expect that, unlike Star and SkyTeam, oneworld will be a mixed bag. The two oneworld carriers with deep local partnerships will likely stay/go with their respective partner - so Cathay Pacific with Air China at PEK and AA with China Southern at Daxing. For the remaining oneworld carriers, who collectively comprise a tiny fraction of overall air traffic in and out of the region, I doubt it will make much difference either way which airport they use.

jeffrey0032j · Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:34 pm

NichCage wrote:
PEK will stay open for Star Alliance, but will other non-alliance airlines stay? I am talking about airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways, El Al, Air Mauritius, etc.

With all of SkyTeam gone from PEK, there will be quite a lot of free slots for other airlines to use.

How is Terminal 3 coping with traffic? Is the Terminal congested in needing of expansion or a replacement?

The most important question is, where will JS go?

Antarius · Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:32 pm

kavok wrote:
Given the distance from Beijing, does this airport become the new Chinese Narita?

Sounds like they are planning ahead, and building a high speed train. IMO, more like a ARN or ICN as opposed to NRT or IAD.

Unrelated, but the runway design is similar in some ways to DFW.

c933103 · Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:48 pm

Overthecascades wrote:
Will this allow Mu and CZ to open long haul international routes from Beijing potentially circumventing the existing policy of one airline one route?

No. A few months ago when they announced their planning relaxation on the on airline one route policy, they've also firmly defined routes departing out of the new Beijing airport will be treated as same as route departing out of PEK. Which lead us to the question of....

rnav2dlrey wrote:
For someone unfamiliar with Beijing, does either airport have a clear advantage?

panamair wrote:
NZ321 wrote:
What about CA? So we can expect the existing facility to continue or does everything shift over? Or do we get a split with Skyteam at one airport and other airlines continuing at Beijing Capital? I wonder what the new airport code is? Has it been announced?

CA and its Star Alliance partners will remain at Beijing Capital while MU and CZ will be the anchor airlines at the new Daxing airport and all Skyteam carriers will move over there. It is not quite clear where oneworld carriers will go, though AA with its new ties to CZ will most likely move to Daxing.

Since CA which currently flown most international routes out of PEK will stay in PEK, and CZ+MU will move to Daxing with their trivial amount of international route out of Beijing, (although other Skyteam partners could help out), the PEK will probably end up handle more international traffic than the new Beijing airport. And then after you consider the distance factor I am not so sure about why would anyone pick the new airport unless they really want to fly on particular airlines/alliance.

jsnww81 · Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:17 pm

This is China we're talking about - the strong hand of central planning is part of life. Daxing is a huge investment and the authorities will make sure it doesn't become another Mirabel. It's not THAT much further out than Capital Airport and it'll be well connected by road and rail.

The next five years will be big for Chinese aviation - besides Daxing, there are huge new greenfield airports being built in Qingdao, Xiamen, Chengdu, Dalian, Sanya and Hohhot as well. Just about every other major airport is adding runways, terminals, or both. I'm surprised it's not a bigger discussion topic on here!

EddieDude · Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:48 pm

Rumors that AM will launch PEK were rampant some months ago and then they subsided. I wonder if AM will wait until the new Daxing is open before launching Mexico City - XXX- Beijing - Mexico City.

EddieDude · Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:50 pm

c933103 wrote:
CZ+MU will move to Daxing with their trivial amount of international route out of Beijing

My understanding is that CZ and MU will expand significantly at Daxing once they move, so the traffic they will generate will likely be much more than trivial.

Overthecascades · Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:02 am

EddieDude wrote:
c933103 wrote:
CZ+MU will move to Daxing with their trivial amount of international route out of Beijing

My understanding is that CZ and MU will expand significantly at Daxing once they move, so the traffic they will generate will likely be much more than trivial.

Not if the “one route one airline” policy remains in place. Of course CAAC can always relax or tweak it.

Sydscott · Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:34 am

commavia wrote:
hongkongflyer wrote:
Once the move is done, I expect CA (and Star Alliance airlines) will stay in T3, together with oneWorld and non-alliance airlines which they are currently using T3.

I expect that, unlike Star and SkyTeam, oneworld will be a mixed bag. The two oneworld carriers with deep local partnerships will likely stay/go with their respective partner - so Cathay Pacific with Air China at PEK and AA with China Southern at Daxing. For the remaining oneworld carriers, who collectively comprise a tiny fraction of overall air traffic in and out of the region, I doubt it will make much difference either way which airport they use.

QF has a J/V with China Eastern. So they'll be wherever China Eastern ends up.

EddieDude · Thu Oct 19, 2017 5:27 pm

Overthecascades wrote:
Not if the “one route one airline” policy remains in place. Of course CAAC can always relax or tweak it.

Yes, exactly. My point was that it has been mentioned on a.net that the rule is expected to be relaxed in order to allow CZ and MU to expand from Daxing.

bzcat · Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:21 pm

HU group is staying at PEK? That makes HU and CA the odd couple...

Slash787 · Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:09 pm

I was in PEK a few weeks ago, the current airport is already so big, I don't think so there was a need of another airport

N14AZ · Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:31 pm

Slash787 wrote:
I was in PEK a few weeks ago, the current airport is already so big, I don't think so there was a need of another airport

??? Maybe you were lucky. Altogether I think I spent one year of my life on the tarmac waiting for push-back or for take-off...

As others mentioned, I spent another year in the security line before entering T3.

And this is just the present state. As Napoleon used to say, the giant has just awoken...

Slash787 · Fri Oct 20, 2017 10:33 am

N14AZ wrote:
Slash787 wrote:
I was in PEK a few weeks ago, the current airport is already so big, I don't think so there was a need of another airport

??? Maybe you were lucky. Altogether I think I spent one year of my life on the tarmac waiting for push-back or for take-off...

As others mentioned, I spent another year in the security line before entering T3.

And this is just the present state. As Napoleon used to say, the giant has just awoken...

The only line which was very long for me was the check in line cause only like 3 counters were open, the security line was very short for me cause maybe it was 4am.

I have just been there 2 times, so yeah frequent travellers to there would know better.

bunumuring · Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:29 am

Hey guys,
My experiences in Beijing a couple of years ago when the new terminal first opened were great. Returning two years later I couldn't believe how many more passengers were using the terminal and how much 'slower' everything seemed to be.
On a side note, I loved the design of the terminal, by Foster + Partners.
I agree with sydscott's posting above about Qantas and Beijing .... I'm sure that they will move to where their great buddies Chinas' Southern and Eastern are.
Cheers,
Bunumuring.

LY777 · Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:40 am

The new airport looks so great. A shame it is so far from the city center though (like NRT)

Aither · Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:26 am

Overthecascades wrote:
EddieDude wrote:
c933103 wrote:
CZ+MU will move to Daxing with their trivial amount of international route out of Beijing

My understanding is that CZ and MU will expand significantly at Daxing once they move, so the traffic they will generate will likely be much more than trivial.

Not if the “one route one airline” policy remains in place. Of course CAAC can always relax or tweak it.

They will have to because the new airport is being advertised as an international hub and is optimized for the transit traffic.
As someone mentioned before Chinese are good are building things. But how to efficiently operate these beasts is another story. PEK T3 is a good example : great infrastructure, new, but not capable of managing the transit traffic. When going to secondary destinations in China, it's still highly recommended to go through ICN or HKG! it was not an issue in the past since nobody was flying from or to secondary cities. But now the traffic is increasingly spreading out.

LAX772LR · Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:00 am

zakuivcustom wrote:
But overall, the only thing after Daxing open means is that ATL will likely retain its busiest airport crown for quite a bit longer than it would.

ATL seemed in no real danger of being taken over by PEK any time soon, with or without Daxing.

PEK is so incredibly congested that even current operators could sometimes wait a year or more before securing a slot for a second route.

Sure upgauging is a possibility, but not likely one that would've covered a 10million pax spread, especially as ATL itself is only growing ~2% slower.

TropicalSky · Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:51 pm

Can someone post a few pics of the airport terminal plans and runway configuration pleaseeee

DCA-ROCguy · Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:04 pm

A quick question for Beijing airport history experts. I'll do some research, but if someone can give a short answer it will be welcome.

Google Satellite shows that there is about 10-12 miles / 20 km or so of agricultural, only moderately-settled land in between the Daxing site and the denser Beijing metro around say Nanyouan. Given that this is China, who essentially builds things where they want, I'm surprised they didn't put the Daxing airport much closer to town. Were I one of the carriers / alliances who is going to be moved to Daxing, I would be unhappy that my competitors would have a competitive advantage being at much closer Capital City / PEK.

Jim

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