Passenger airliners take off, land at Daxing airport
China Eastern Airlines' A350 lands at Beijing Daxing International Airport on Monday morning.
Beijing's new airport received four test flights from major domestic airlines on Monday in preparation for opening in September.
Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Xiamen airlines dispatched models Boeing 747-8, Airbus 350, Airbus 380 and Boeing 787-9 for Beijing Daxing International Airport's first verification tests with passenger aircraft.
No passengers were on board, but officials with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airlines were.
The flights took off from nearby Beijing Capital International Airport. After ground clearance, they flew back to the capital airport.
Feng Zhenglin, the head of CAAC, was on China Southern's A380 Superjumbo during the first test.
China Southern Airlines' A380 superjumbo lands at Beijing Daxing International Airport in a test flight on Monday morning.
China Southern Airlines' A380 berths at Beijing Daxing International Airport in a test flight on Monday morning.
The test flights came over three months after the first test plane on January 22.
Daxing is scheduled to be completed on June 30 and open on September 30 to relieve the capital airport from tight flight pressure.
The new airport near the junction of Beijing's Daxing district and Langfang in north Hebei Province is expected to handle 45 million passengers in 2021 and 72 million in 2025, making it one of the busiest airports in the world.
Covering an area of 47 square kilometers, with four runways, the new airport will double the size of the capital airport, currently the largest airport in China. Three more runways will open as passenger numbers rise.
