The word’s biggest airport will open in 2019

For those of us who love to travel and spend time at airports, Beijing is about to join an exclusive list of having the world’s biggest and most expensive airport. Located just south of Beijing, the new airport will comprise of a 7.5 million-square-foot airport terminal, the largest in the world. The airport will include direct connections to local and national rail transportation including the GaoTie high-speed rail network, which will transport passengers to and from downtown Beijing and cities like Tianjin and Hebei Province in less than half an hour.

The $13 billion airport is expected to alleviate pressure on Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), which was built in time for the 2008 Olympic Games and now boasts the title of world’s second-busiest airport having hosted over 94.4 million passengers in 2016. Originally built to process 80 million people a year, the capital’s existing airport has lacked the infrastructure to support increasing travel demand.

Scheduled to open in 2019, Beijing Daxing International Airport will include seven runways and accommodate up to 100 million passengers each year, according to Li Jiaxiang, the director of China’s bureau of aviation. #justjody can’t wait for it to be operational and to travel there.