About Beijing
Beijing Capital International Airport is the main international airport serving Beijing, China. Before the opening of Beijing Daxing International Airport in 2019, it was the primary gateway to the capital. It has consistently ranked as the second-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic. It is the main hub for Air China, the flag carrier of the People's Republic of China.
The airport expanded significantly for the 2008 Summer Olympics with the opening of Terminal 3. Designed by Norman Foster, Terminal 3 is one of the largest airport terminal buildings in the world. Its soaring roof is colored dragon-yellow and red, symbolizing traditional Chinese colors. The terminal is designed to handle the massive influx of international visitors.
The airport features three runways and is located 32 km (20 mi) northeast of Beijing's city center. It connects to the city via the Airport Express subway line. Despite the new Daxing airport taking some traffic, Capital Airport remains a critical node in the global aviation network, connecting Asia to the rest of the world.
Beijing Capital rose from a single grass strip serving twelve daily flights in 1958 to a triple-runway hub in exactly fifty years, with the third runway opening on 29 October 2007 in time for the Olympic surge. Under Chinese Civil Aviation Administration regulations, PEK operates under a strict two-slot-per-minute limit during daytime hours and imposes a hard curfew between 00:00 and 06:00 for noise abatement over the dense Chaoyang and Shunyi districts. Cargo throughput ranks it among Asia's top three for freight tonnes handled, thanks to a large refrigerated warehouse dedicated to Wuchang rice exports and Yunnan cut flowers destined for Amsterdam auctions. The airport authority pays a 20 per cent "airspace congestion levy" to the People's Liberation Army Air Force each year to compensate for the military-controlled corridors that criss-cross Chinese airspace at commercial altitudes.