Beijing's new airport, planned for the city's Daxing District, will be completed by 2040, reported by the Beijing times on Thursday.
《新京报》周四报道，计划建于北京大兴区的新机场将于2040年竣工。
The new airport was designed by Iraq-born British architect Zaha Hadid, who used a streamlined design to provide the new airport with vitality.
"The new airport will experience two phases of construction and will have an annual throughput capacity of 100 million passengers by 2040, becoming the world's largest airport," said Wang Baoling, Deputy Director of Beijing SIA City Holdings Co. Ltd., at the China Design Festival in Beijing.
Wang also said the airport will be officially put into operation in 2019 with 4 runways, capable of handling 45 million passengers annually. Meanwhile, follow-up constructions will continue, and the airport is set to expand its annual capacity to handle 72 million passengers and 2 million tons of freights by 2025. By 2040, another two new runways will be completed, which will promote the airport's capacity to deal with an annual passenger flow of 100 million and freight capacity of 4 million tons.
Currently, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the world's largest airport with a passenger capacity of 96 million annually. If the passenger capacity of LAX remains unchanged, Beijing's new airport will become the world's largest by 2040.
