Beijing: Daxing International Airport in the Chinese capital Beijing is known as the world’s largest airport terminal. Built at a cost of $18 billion, this airport was opened to passengers in 2019. This airport has been designed to serve more than 100 million passengers by 2040, but recently when a commercial pilot and travel blogger, Stephen Drury, inspected the terminal of this huge airport, he was stunned.
Lack of passengers in the world’s largest terminal
Stephen has been to this airport before; he found that the world’s largest air terminal is struggling with a lack of passengers. Even today, this is not the main airport for the people of Beijing. They prefer Beijing Capital Airport instead. For the convenience of passengers, the Airport Express train has also been introduced, which has reduced the travel time to the airport to 19 minutes, but Dajing is still quiet.
Airport security was described as good
Spread over 2679 hectares, this huge airport has four commercial runways and a dedicated military strip. It is also called the Starfish due to its unique design. Stephen made a video of this airport in which he said that its security is very tight, to say the least. There are security guards posted in the taxi area. There is a security check to enter the airport. It is a highly protected and very secure environment, which is great for aviation.
When Stephen Durie entered the terminal, he saw surprisingly few passengers, which surprised him. This airport was designed to handle 100 million passengers annually, which would make it the busiest terminal in the world. But Stephen found the terminal quite empty. There were not many shops open in the terminal, and there was no crowd either.
Surprised to see the airport empty
He said, “To be honest, it’s a bit strange that there are so few people here. I know this is an airport that is being developed for the future. Not every airline is flying from here at the moment. Beijing Capital is a bigger and more popular airport, and people use it more due to its location, but still Daxing Airport, which opened in 2019, seems very empty.”
