From a starfish to the sky!
China has opened a new ‘Starfish‘ shaped airport in Beijing. The new Daxing International Airport, being the second airport in the capital city, is touted to be the biggest airport terminal in the world with an area of more than 11,000,000 sq feet and the structure is shaped in such a way that there are six spokes coming out of the central building, giving it the shape of a starfish. At 700,000 sq meters, with four runways, it is expected to be able to handle 72 million passengers, 2 million tons of cargo and mail, and 620,000 aircraft movements a year by 2025. By 2040, the airport is expected to expand to eight runways and accommodate 100 million passengers a year.
The name of the airport was announced on September 14, 2018, and the construction was completed on June 30, 2019. The opening ceremony for the airport was held on September 25, 2019, whereas the airport opened to the public on September 26, 2019, and the first commercial flight landed at Beijing Daxing at 10:12 (UTC+8), September 26, 2019.
China is expected to surpass the US to become the world’s largest market for airport travel by 2022. But the aviation sector has a poor reputation for flight disruptions, the result of frequents delays caused by overcapacity and delays caused by the military, which controls most of the airspace. Officials hope the new airport will lessen those delays.
As the craze for this newly constructed and highly fashioned airport is increasing, many airlines including domestic and international have decided to relocate their flights from the older airport to this new mega – one.
Though people are liking it, critics have questioned the need for a second airport in the capital, especially one that is almost twice the distance from the city centre as the existing airport