In late September 2019, Beijing's new Daxing International Airport opened, which will be Beijing's new mega-airport (not that Beijing Capital Airport wasn't already huge). The terminal at the airport is the second largest airport terminal in the world (after New Istanbul Airport), with over 11 million square feet. As you'd expect, not all airlines are…
Continue reading: Delta Moving To Beijing Daxing Airport
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
It's been know that Oneworld and SkyTeam will move to this wonderful airport.
Kinda suck that CZ left SkyTeam. PKX is going to be their 2nd fortress. SkyTeam would have dominated PKX.
Never flown into Daxing airport, but frankly anything would be an improvement over PEK. I flew into PEK from SIN to connect to a flight from PEK to DTW in Delta One suites, and it was just the worst experience ever. I had to get a transit visa to go outside of the airport just to connect to another terminal, and dealing with Chinese visa officers sucked, especially with the language barrier. Then, after getting to the second terminal, the business class lounge was literally the worst I’ve experienced because the SkyTeam lounge was undergoing renovations. PEK is easily one of the worst airports I’ve visited.
Agree with @Brian on the transit visa mess at PEK. Just to change from CX to AA, I had to get a transit visa, go through immigration etc. At many airports (LHR comes to mind) they would have managed it with an airside transfer. Of course, we or at least I don't yet know what the procedures at PKX will be like.
You have to keep in mind the disadvantages too - the new airport is very far from city center and is huge. Also, Delta is not moving their operation persay, but more precisely Skyteam is. Further, I don't think now is a good representation of the airport and status because there are still relatively few flights operating out of there. Wait a couple of years until it is in full motion to review it.
Whilst I haven't been to PKX myself, I'd hope that the design of PKX allows for smooth INT-INT transits as do occur at PEK T3, where as long as you are both arriving and departing from T3, the connection is pretty simple.
The major problem at PEK is if you have to transfer between T3 and T1 or T2. It's a 6.5 km walk between the two (according to Baidu maps) and no sterile transit is possible. I wonder if the government/BCIA are looking at renovating T1 and T2 or even relocating them since most of the airlines that use them are moving to PKX, but there doesn't seem to be much happening at the moment.