China has formally opened new multi-billion dollar Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is nearly the size of 100 football fields.
The starfish-shaped airport was inaugurated at a ceremony attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Located 46km from the city, the airport is situated at the junction of the Daxing district and Langfang City, which is in the Hebei province of North China.
It is expected to provide much-needed airport capacity for the city, alleviating pressure from the overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA).
Many foreign and domestic airlines such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines have decided to move part of their operations to the new airport.
Beijing Daxing International Airport has incurred an approximate expenditure of CNY120bn ($17.46bn), while the projects in its periphery received investments of CNY330bn ($48bn).
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By GlobalDataDesigned by ADP Ingénierie and the notable British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, the airport is spread over 700,000m2 and features four runways.
Daxing International will reportedly have a capacity of 72 million passengers by 2025, which will eventually increase to 100 million.
The airport is connected to the neighbouring areas of Tianjin and Hebei by a network of high-speed trains, buses and metros.
According to Reuters, an express train from the airport to the south of Beijing will take 20 minutes.
In July this year, UAE-based real estate developer Emaar signed an agreement to execute a project worth around AED40.5bn ($11bn) at Beijing Daxing International Airport.
In June, Israeli company Xsight Systems installed its foreign object debris (FOD) detection solution on the East and North runways of the airport in June.
