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With the opening of T2 of Pudong Airport, today, another terminal, T3 of Beijing Capital International Airport also opens. I am also lucky to experience the new terminal today.
Overview
The first impression of T3 is, it is HUGE! Look at the Google Satellite image below: T1 (opened in 1959) and T2 (opened in 1999) look so tiny compared to the big T3. The Google image is not updated yet. On the image, it is not completed, and now, it is open, and 60% of flights have already transited to T3.
Today, it is the largest terminal in the world, larger than the combination of the current four terminal in London's Heathrow airport (the world largest airport).
By building area, it is also almost the largest building ever on earth, bigger than Pentagon in Washington D.C. More notable, it is completed within 4 years, which is pretty astonishing. According to Matt, one of the designer, their firm got the job to design the terminal 6 months before the construction actually started. Considering the Beijing Railway Station (Asia's largest) took one year to built, and the city's tallest building, World Trade Center, took only 1 and half year to complete, the short schedule of the airport seems OK in China's standard.
Outside the terminal
The terminal is not very tall (at least seen from the runway), and you can hardly see them from the plane. It does not look very big from outside, does it? However, you will quickly find out you are wrong. It IS tall and it IS huge when you take a closer look.
The first impression of the terminal for me is, it is a pine apple!
Another pine-apple picture:
Inside the terminal
To be honest with you, the dark orange color plus white is a little bit shocking for me. I didn't expect Beijing to have an airport with this color. I don't know why, but it reminds me of the airports in southeast countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia...
I am in the big curve of T3-C section.
Looking back:
The package picking area is also pretty amazing. The hall is high and with strong ceiling decoration.
The direction board, as always, is pretty clear in Beijing Airport.
This is the diagram of the terminal.
This is the most amazing part - the departure hall - the biggest inner space in the airport.
Look at the orange and reddish roof - what it reminds you? I thought about sky and galaxy when I first saw it.
Parking 3
This huge architect is a parking building. It has more than 6000 parking space there. I have several photos of it. I also have a special entry on it: this huge project is not only a parking space, it is also the Beijing Airport Express Train station.
Summary
I didn't have time to explore the Beijing Airport T3 as much as I did for the Shanghai T2. I will do more research and take more picture when I get back tomorrow. Beijing's T3 is huge, out of my imagination.
With the completion (after four year's construction) and open, it is another solid milestone for Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at March 27, 2008 2:39 AM
Copyright: You are free to redistribute this work, as long as you keep this disclaimer
and this link: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20080327_beijing_airport_terminal_3_t3_opens.htm
Good heavens! Two completely brand new terminals in one day? You are a pioneer!!
This building looks simply amazing -- even more astonishing than the one in Pudong. I would be interested to hear what they are planning to do on the top of the parking structure where it looks like they are planting long rows of grass and shrubbery. A giant urban garden space perhaps? And, are the white sections between the green areas solar panels? Or possibly just lightly-covered open sections in the roof to allow natural light in to the top level of the parking garage? It's very intriguing!
A very exciting day for you!!
Posted by: Carroll on March 27, 2008 7:35 AMHeathrow Terminal 5 opened here in London too! Been to the airport in Beijing... it was pretty grotty!
Posted by: dave (external link) on March 28, 2008 1:15 AMI will fly CA out of Beijing next Tue. I need to get to the T3 half an hour earlier than before, plus 20 mins longer on the road. I am not complaining, I do love to see a new terminal opened in Beijing.
Posted by: Amy Xu on March 28, 2008 1:33 PM@Carroll, the white pannel is not solar pannel. It is glass window, so it is not so dark in the parking lot. I have taken some pictures and will show the picture in the next entry.
Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang (external link) on March 28, 2008 10:56 PMI got some interesting comments on London Heathrow terminal 5's launch by Lisa Minot, The Sun, 28 March.
Heathrow's terminal 5 -- which took 20 years to plan and cost 4.3m pounds -- opened in chaos yesterday (27th March)
1. Passengers faced waiting hours for baggage.
2. Little information with display screens going on the blink and a lack of basics facilities such as catering and baby-changing.
3. Toilets were unfinished.
4. Escalators broke down. There were reports of families missing flights after two lifts jammed.
5. Some 35 outgoing flights were cancelled with 28 incoming ones.
6. Airport staff delayed to go to work for about 2 hours, coz not enough parking space.
7. Many airport staff cried for abused complains from upset passengers.
8. Staff complained that have not gotten enough training of the new baggage handle systems.
Bosses said servive today should ba back to normail. But that did not appear furious passengers.
Posted by: Jie on March 29, 2008 7:32 AMI agree and love it! And thankfully Singapore Airlines (my country's flagship carrier) is flying there from Singapore Changi Airport's new Terminal 3 (opened in Jan 9 2008) to Beijing Capital In'l Airport's Terminal 3! That is just too perfect. And to my surprise this terminal opened without a single hiccup (compared to London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5, which opened on the same day as Beijing's)! See what Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Capital_International_Airport):
Terminal 3
The construction of Terminal 3 started on March 28, 2004.It opens on February 29, 2008 and becomes fully operational on March 26, 2008, when Air China, Shanghai Airlines, other Star Alliance members, and other international airlines move in. It was designed by a consortium of NACO, Netherlands Airport Consultants B.V., UK Architect Foster and Partners and ARUP. The budget of the expansion is US$3.5 billion.
Far grander in size and scale than the existing terminals, it will become the largest airport terminal building complex built in a single phase with 986,000 sq. meters in total floor area. It will feature a main passenger terminal (Terminal 3A), two satellite concourses (Terminal 3B and Terminal 3C) and five floors above ground and two underground.
System, Security and Luggage
A 300,000-sq.m transportation centre is located at the front of T3. 7,000 car parking spaces will be available if the two-level underground parking lot is fully employed. The transportation centre will have three lanes for different types of vehicles, airport buses, taxies and private vehicles, which will enable a smooth flow of passengers. People bound for T3 will exit their vehicles here and enter T3 via an aisle within five minutes. The transportation centre will also have a light-rail station on a line that begins at the Dongzhimen stop on the Beijing Subway in Central Beijing. Travel time from Dongzhimen to T3 will be about 18 minutes.
There will be electrical outlets on either end of every row of seats in the terminal. There will be 243 elevators, escalators or moving walkways; and every restroom is accompanied by a mothers’ room where diapers can be changed. There is also a room for travellers with disabilities.
One of Terminal 3's highlights is the US$240 million luggage-transfer system. The luggage system is equipped with yellow carts, each of which has a code, matching the bar code on every piece of luggage loaded on it, allowing easy and accurate tracking. More than 200 cameras will be used to monitor activities in the luggage area.
The luggage system can handle 19,200 pieces of luggage per hour. After luggage is checked in at any one of the 292 counters at Terminal 3A, they can be transferred at the speed of ten metres per second. Even for international routes, luggage can travel from T3A to T3B in five minutes. Arriving passengers should be able to begin retrieving their luggage within 4.5 minutes after airplanes are unloaded.
Along with X-ray scanners, additional equipment conducts checks such as for explosives. Passengers will be able to check in their luggage at the airport several hours or even a day before their flight. The airport will store them in its luggage system and then load them on the correct airplane.
The Look
A 98.3-metre monitoring tower stands at the southern end of T3, the highest building at the airport. The roof of T3 is red, the Chinese colour for good luck. The terminal’s ceilings use white strips for decoration and to indicate directions. Under the white strips, the basic colour of the ceiling is orange with light to dark tones indicating where a passenger is inside the building. It is light orange in the centre and deepens as it extends to the sides in T3B and is the other way round in T3A.
The roof of T3 has dozens of windows to let in daylight. Light angles can be adjusted to ensure adequate interior lighting. Many traditional Chinese elements will be employed in the terminal’s interior decoration, including a “Menhai,” a big copper vat used to store water for fighting fires in the Forbidden City, and the carvings imitating the famous Nine-Dragon Wall (Jiulongbi).
An indoor garden will be constructed in the T3B waiting area, in the style of imperial gardens such as the Summer Palace. In T3A, a tunnel landscape of an underground garden has been finished with plants on each side so that passengers can appreciate them inside the mini-train.
Facilities
The T3 food-service area is called a “global kitchen,” where 72 stores will provide food ranging from formal dishes to fast food, from Chinese to western, from bakery goods to ice cream. Airport officials have promised that people who buy products at the airport will see the same prices as in Central Beijing.
In addition to food and drink businesses, there will be a 12,600-sq.m domestic retail area, a 10,600-sq.m duty-free-store area and nearly 7,000-sq.m convenience service area, including banks, business centres, Internet services and more. At 45,200 sq.m, the commercial area will be twice the size of Beijing’s Lufthansa Shopping Centres.
Transportation between the three terminals
To get from Terminal 3A to 3B, Both domestic and international travellers will have to get boarding passes at T3A, but international passengers have to board from T3B. The two-kilometre trip between the two buildings is too far for walking, so the airport will have a free mini-train that shuttles between the two in three minutes.
To help passengers that go to the wrong terminal, the airport will provide bus transportation between T3 and the old terminals for free from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The buses set out every ten minutes from 8 a.m. to 8p.m., and every 20 minutes during other times.[16]
When completed, it will provide 66 more aerobridges or jetways - further complemented with remote parking bays which will bring the total of gates to 120 for the terminal alone. An additional runway is also projected to be constructed at that time. It will also have an extra capacity of 50 million people bringing the total to approximately 82 million passengers yearly. Upon completion, it is reported that passengers will be able to travel from the entrance of Terminal 3 to the farthest gate in less than 5 minutes.
Posted by: Ardin on March 29, 2008 4:37 PMIt sounds like the Disneyland of airport facilities! If I am ever fortunate enough to fly in to this destination, I will be sure to leave at least a half day to explore the airport -- as much a tourist attraction as the rest of the city, for sure :-)
Posted by: Carroll on April 1, 2008 12:36 AMtruly a big building . i'm in awe of the structure and impressed by the ease of use . the shuttle train reduces the time and distance and also the frustration of arrival and transfer
Posted by: steve on April 1, 2008 3:05 PMI have just been back from Beijing's new T3. As an engineer I can say that this structure it's amazing and it can teach a lot to much more fanfared ones ended in squeaking noises as their music started. If a demonstration that things can be done at once and work properly since the beginning was needed T3 is the one. Same as no matter a building can be huge it can be accurately detailed and not just simply "impressing for the sight". Even the smaller of the detail must have been born with the project since there are no visible signs of "patches" made to fix problems. There is always something to learn.
Posted by: sergio on May 5, 2008 3:51 AMI have just been back from Beijing's new T3. Love the airy space with tall ceiling, and the sunroof that let the sunshine into the garage.
The coffee shop sound good if there would be no carbon monoxide from the car exhuast pipes.
Posted by: Jasmin rice on May 5, 2008 4:33 PMThis is just the most amazing gateway into the fastest growing nations in the world. Really looking forward to going through this brand new wonder in August on my way to the Games. They say that will be the games to end all games. I'll be there to see it.
Posted by: Gary on May 8, 2008 7:05 PM