{"id":238,"date":"2021-02-23T13:05:04","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T13:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulse.dbschenker.com\/fr\/?p=238"},"modified":"2022-03-04T09:45:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T09:45:03","slug":"beijing-daxing-airport-in-the-land-of-superlatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulse.dbschenker.com.staging.mensemedia.net\/fr\/beijing-daxing-airport-in-the-land-of-superlatives\/","title":{"rendered":"P\u00e9kin Daxing A\u00e9roport: Au pays des superlatifs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

China is pursuing ambitious goals with the construction of a third airport in Beijing. Beijing Daxing Airport is intended to tame the rapid growth of air traffic in the region around the capital. In air cargo, the airport with the IATA abbreviation PKX is to create one of the most important transshipment hubs in the giant empire.
Aviation in China is more than just moving people and cargo from one place to another by plane. It is also a political indicator of how far China has progressed on the road to modernity. And in this respect, the country with its 1.4 billion inhabitants has reached an extraordinary level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reason enough to take a look at the world’s latest mega-projects in a loose sequence: How do plummeting passenger and airfreight numbers square with often ambitious expansion plans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long history of aviation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

China has had airports since 1907. The first was built in Shanghai and served the military. Twelve years after that, civil aviation took off. Today, Chinese engineers design airplanes and fly into space. According to figures from the IATA Air Transport Association, the jobs of six million people in the country depend on aviation.
The sector is driven primarily by the gigantic domestic market: Passenger numbers and cargo volumes are growing rapidly. In 2019, more than 700 million people traveled by air in China, and around 16.74 million tons of cargo were carried. 37 airports in the country have an annual capacity of more than 10 million passengers.
No wonder, then, that the government is now building a superlative new airport in the capital: In terms of building area, Beijing Daxing International Airport is the largest airport in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capacities in an important region<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One reason for the new building was the limited capacity for air traffic in the capital region. The previous Beijing Capital International Airport, the second largest in the world, was at full capacity and could no longer be expanded. Originally designed for 75 million passengers a year, however, this limit was already exceeded in 2012. Beijing also has the small Beijing Nanyuan Airport, which has military and civilian uses but was closed when the new PKX opened in September 2019. Just six million passengers flew through NAY in the year – mostly on domestic flights operated by China United Airlines.
Finally, China needs connectivity to the global aviation network for the new Xiong’an Economic Zone. The newly built area is to become a kind of subsidiary capital to Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n