Beijing has opened its new massive airport, Daxing International.

It was formally opened by President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Sep. 25, ahead of the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1.

The starfish-shaped airport, at 700,000 sq m, is located in the south of the capital.

The maiden flight from the new airport was scheduled on Wednesday at 3.30pm Beijing time.

A China Southern Airlines Airbus A380 flight to Guangzhou was the first to fly out.

It has four runways and can handle up to 72 million passengers a year by 2025, and even up to 100 million eventually.

The starfish-shaped airport, located in the south of China's capital, will relieve pressure on the existing Capital International Airport in Beijing's northeast where flight delays are common.

The airport, abbreviated as PKX, was hailed as "a new powerful source of national development" at a ceremony overseen by Xi.

Top government officials, including He Lifeng, the head of the state planner and a vice premier, Han Zheng, also participated.

Location

Daxing airport is about 46km away from Tiananmen Square.

This distance is almost twice that of the Capital airport to central Beijing.

The new airport is built on farmland.

It was built in less than five years at a cost of more than US$11 billion (S$15.1 billion).

An express train from Daxing will take about 20 minutes to reach the south of Beijing.

Passengers from the neighbouring areas of Hebei and Tianjin can also access Daxing using trains, subways and public buses.

Flag carrier Air China won 10 percent of the capacity at Daxing.

About 50 foreign airlines plan to move all or part of their operations in the next few quarters.

Beijing Nanyuan Airport, China's oldest airport, will cease operations from Sep. 26.

Daxing is expected to welcome 100 million passengers per year by 2040.

It will have expanded to eight runways by then, making it the world's largest single terminal in terms of traveller capacity.

This is comparable to Atlanta airport in the United States, which is the world's busiest airport with 100 million passengers received across two terminals.

China will surpass the US to become the world's biggest aviation market by the mid-2020s.

Project costs

The building was designed by Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016.

It was built in conjunction with the engineering subsidiary of Aeroports de Paris.

A train station and metro line underneath the terminal will allow travellers to reach the city centre in 20 or so minutes.

The entire project cost 120 billion yuan (S$224.1 million), or 400 billion yuan (S$77.3 billion) if rail and road links are included.

Top photo via Osram & Getty

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