BEIJING’S Daxing International Airport opened for flights as a China Southern Airlines jetliner took off yesterday afternoon, after President Xi Jinping announced the official opening of the airport earlier in the day.

The maiden flight flew from Beijing to Guangzhou in Guangdong Province. Following it, six other Chinese airlines started their respective first flight via the new airport.

Located 46 km south of downtown Beijing, the new aviation hub is shaped like a phoenix spreading its wings. Its passenger throughput and cargo throughput are expected to reach 72 million and 2 million tons, respectively, by 2025.

It only takes a passenger eight minutes to walk from the center of the terminal building to the furthest departure gate.

Zeng Qingwei, a passenger taking China Eastern Airlines’ first flight from the new airport, said it took him one minute to complete the check-in process with baggage.

“The automated check-in with facial recognition is very convenient,” said the passenger leaving for Shanghai.

J. Russ Fortson, managing director of Asia Pacific for American Airlines, attended the airport’s opening ceremony.

“I’ve been around airports for over 30 years and I can’t recall seeing such an impressive facility,” said Fortson.

The new airport emerges as a pivotal air traffic hub for international travel to and from China as the country is poised to become the world’s largest civil aviation market around the mid-2020s.

Liu Chunchen, director of the airport department of China Civil Aviation Administration, said the combined passenger handling capacity of the Daxing airport and Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeast of the city will exceed 250 million in the future.

According to the Daxing airport authority, 66 airlines have applied to operate at the airport. Among them, 20 are domestic airlines and 46 overseas ones. The airport will operate 116 routes connecting to 112 destinations globally by the end of this year.

Three urban rail lines and several expressways will connect the 5G-covered airport with Beijing’s city center, Xiongan New Area and Beijing’s surrounding areas.

The airport, which took five years to build, is 82 km away from Tianjin Municipality and 197 km away from Shijiazhuang, capital of neighboring Hebei Province.

The airport’s role as the regional transport hub will greatly facilitate China’s strategy to integrate the development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, said Wang Youguo, district head of Daxing.(Xinhua)