First commercial flights take off from Beijing's new International airport
The first commercial flights from Beijing's new Daxing International airport took off on Wednesday (Sep 25). Built at a cost of US$63 million, the airport is roughly the size of 100 football fields and is expected to become one of the world's busiest. It boasts four runways and is expected to handle up to 72 million passengers a year by 2025, eventually reaching 100 millions. The starfish-shaped airport, located in the south of China's capital, will help relieve pressure on the existing Capital International Airport in Beijing's northeast, where capacity constraints often cause flight delays. The airport, abbreviated PKX, was hailed as "a new powerful source of national development" at the opening ceremony overseen by President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, ahead of the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. A China Southern Airlines Airbus A380 flight to Guangzhou was the first to fly out.