Throwback Thursday: 9 Years Ago We Were Graced With T3, Today We Eagerly Await Daxing Airport

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.

Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe that the wonderful, glorious T3 opened this month nine years ago? We can't either. And little did we know, nine years ago, that T3, which is the second largest airport terminal in the world, apart from relieving some traffic, would actually be absolutely no improvement on any other airport terminal in Beijing.

Earlier this month we reminisced about the incredible culinary options in this building. A favorite being the chuan'r stick depicted above, designed for those looking to watch their waistline.

Today, we are checking back in to see what the progress is on the latest airport addition to our city: the one in Daxing. We're all holding on tight to see what the new airport will bring when it's finally unveiled.

To be perfectly honest, we don't have much hope. Located 46 kilometers south of Beijing's city center, the international airport, part of which crosses into beautiful Hebei province, has not received an official name or airport code yet.

The project is currently expected to be completed and open for use in September 2019 (recently delayed from the initial 2018 target), and a new rapid transit line is still being built to conveniently connect the airport to the city, linking the airport to Beijing South Railway Station in an estimated 30 minutes. 

Early reports see China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, and SkyTeam move their entire operations to the new airport once it opens (previously housed in T2 of Beijing Capital International Airport). This includes China Airlines, and international airlines such as Delta Airlines, Korean Airlines, Aeroflot, AeroMexico, Air France, Alitalia, and KLM. 

On top of that, all Beijing Nanyuan Airport routes, which currently only services China United Airlines, will also be moved there.

If the creators of the new airport happen to be reading this blog, please refer to our 10 suggestions to make this airport not just the world's largest, but also the world's best. Until five KFCs have opened their doors, there is still hope.

More stories by this author here.

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Photo: arup.comdesignboom.com, Jerry Chan