First flights take off from new airport

BEIJING: The first commercial flights from Beijing’s new Daxing International airport took off on Wednesday – an airport that cost US$63 billion (K214bil) to build, is roughly the size of 100 football fields and is expected to become one of the world’s busiest.
Shaped like a phoenix – though to some observers it is more reminiscent of a starfish – the airport was designed by famed Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid.
It boasts four runways and is expected to handle up to 72 million passengers a year by 2025, eventually reaching 100 million.
It was hailed as “a new powerful source of national development” at a ceremony overseen by President Xi Jinping, just days ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
A China Southern Airlines Airbus A380 flight to Guangzhou in the country’s south was the first to fly out. – Reuters