Chinese government has granted approval to start construction of a second airport outside the capital Beijing.
Deliberations over the building of a new airport began two years ago as China’s economic boom outstripped the capacity of the existing Beijing Capital International Airport. The latter has a designated volume set at 76 million passengers a year. The latest government figures state that the airport processed 82 million passengers last year – a growth of 4.2 per cent on 2011.
The new facility will be built in Daxing District and it is due to open by 2018. In the first phase it will have capacity for 40 million passengers and in the second phase it will be expanded to a capability of 130 million passengers a year. It will be linked by a system of airport expressways and an exclusive train link which will take passengers from downtown Beijing to the airport in 30 minutes.
