China set to build world's biggest airport
Beijing Capital International Airport is already running at full capacity. Photo: PA
China has started construction on a brand new super-airport that will have nine runways and be roughly the same size as Bermuda.
The Beijing Daxing International Airport is set to open in 2015, making the Chinese capital the world's busiest aviation hub, stealing the crown from the current holder, London.
It will handle 370,000 passengers a day at the 21 square-mile site in the southern suburb of Daxing.
The new airport is a reaction to the Beijing Capital International Airport currently being at bursting point, despite its Terminal 3 - bigger than all of Heathrow's five terminals combined - opening three years ago.
Cao Yunchun, a professor at the country's Civil Aviation University, told the Telegraph: 'The existing airport in Beijing has an annual capacity of 75 million passengers. Last year it handled 73 million. In two years, it will be totally packed. And it cannot be expanded infinitely.
The new site is about an hour's drive from the city centre, but plans are afoot for an extension to Beijing's metro, and even a high-speed train line.
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