Beijing Daxing International Airport (PKX), located in the south of Beijing is ready to open. The first commercial flight takes off on September 25, which is operated by China Southern Airlines who has been officially assigned for 40% slots of PKX. Although China Southern Airlines will leave the SkyTeam Alliance by the end of 2019, other 19 SkyTeam members will transit to the Daxing Airport and start operation on the same day. According to the regulation, the whole flight operations of China Southern Airlines will gradually transit to PKX in the future.

Besides, one of China's Big Three Airlines--China Eastern Airlines is also supposed to move its operation to the new airport and allocated another 40% of the slots. However, China Eastern Airlines is allowed to keep its highly profitable Beijing-Shanghai route at Beijing Capital International Airport. Therefore, China Eastern Airlines have to exchange 10% of the new airport's slots to the flag carrier Air China accordingly.

Air China, member of Star Alliance, will remain its main operation at Beijing Capital International Airport and be given about 22 slots daily at PKX in 2019. The current preliminary document of slot distribution plan published by CAAC from 2019 to 2021 reveals that the slots resource would change semi-annually following the IATA standard and optimize according to the actual operation and transition process.

The initial operational target for multibillion-dollar Daxing airport is to serve 45 million passengers by 2022 and 72 million by 2025 after the second-period construction. The airport currently have 116 routes and 370 daily flights connecting 112 destinations and will increase to 1050 daily flights by 2022. The newly added international flights are 16 daily in 2019 and will increase to 80 daily by 2022.

PKX is going to be the biggest airport in the world with the impressive shape, which has given it the nickname "Starfish". At the time being, there are four runways (with the prospect of becoming seven in the future), a large terminal building covering a 700.000 square meters area and the ground transportation center extending to 80.000 square meters. Located a 46km-distance from Tiananmen Square, a 67km-distance from Beijing International Airport and a 26km-distance from Langfang City Center, Daxing Airport aims to become the main hub of the region.

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