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Beijing's "China-Big" Mega-Airport



With a massive of population of 1.3 billion people, you know the Chinese always need big facilities to accommodate such large amount of people living in the country. Despite the Chinese government’s effort to control its population, China’s population is expected to hit the 1.4 billion mark in a few years’ time. Beijing Capital Airport, Asia’s busiest airport had already exceeded the airport’s capacity of 75 million passengers per year. Therefore, a new airport is definitely on the cards given the enormous wealth of the Chinese government generated by the country’s positive economic growth in these few years.

The second main airport (third in total) in Beijing will locate in the southern part of Beijing in the district of Daxing. The distance from the city center to the planned area is about 30km. A high-speed bullet train has been planned to transport passengers from the planned airport to the city center in 30 minutes time. The size of the airport is almost 7.5km each side. The airport’s size is something like a size of Bermuda.



The airport is expected to have an initial capacity of 130 million. The ambitious plan for the airport in the future is to handle up to 200 million passengers per year! The number is almost three times more the population of UK, nearly two-third of the population of USA.

If you don’t have an idea of how big the number 130 million is, let me give you some stats of airports across the world. Currently, the busiest airport in the world- Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport handled 92 million passengers in 2011. New York’s JFK Airport handles 47 million passengers each year. Tokyo’s Haneda Airport handles 62 million passengers per year. While London’s Heathrow Airport, the largest international airport handles 69 million passengers each year. The total of JFK and Heathrow is still 24 million less than initial planned capacity of the newly-planned Beijing second airport! The total of the current London’s passenger volume which includes Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend, all 6 London airports is 127 million. It’s still 3 million shy of the Beijing’s newly-planned airport! Wow! That’s really very big!



The new airport plans to operate 8 runways to minimize the time for aircrafts taxi from the gates to runway. It is to avoid heavy traffic and wasting unwanted time like London Heathrow which has only 2 runways despite serving up to 67 million passengers.

It is likely that the existing Beijing Capital Airport will likely be used after the opening of the new Beijing second airport in 2017. That means Beijing has a total capacity of up to 205 million in 2017 if both airports are operated in full capacity. This figure easily exceeded those numbers at New York or London.

The new Beijing second airport reportedly will be home to China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines operations. While Air China and its Star Alliance members are expected to continue operate from Beijing Capital Airport. All Oneword, Skyteam, unaffiliated airlines including low-cost carrier is expected to continue operate from the new Beijing Airport.



There will be 45 new airports that will come into operation by 2015 which will add to the 175 airports that currently China has despite 130 of them are losing money. China is way behind in terms of airports in the country. Countries like Mexico, France and Australia has more than 250 airports in their country. Given the enormous population in China, airports will be one of the main infrastructures being built in China apart from skyscrapers in the coming years. The country has already recorded double-digit air travel growth in these past few years.  

One concern for the China’s aviation industry is that, the country’s bullet train service is expanding even faster than air traffic. The country’s high-speed rail already has a total length of 9,676km and the country’s plan is to build up to 25,000km of railway across the country. In 2011, the country’s high speed rail is expected to have diverted 15,600-71,200 travelers a day from all airlines in China. 


By,
Zhe Xu
12/10/2012

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