Beijing airport's new terminal -- AMAZING

I just landed @ Beijing airport and I spent the next 45 minutes GAWPING at the airport's new Terminal 3.

AWESOME.

It's huge; clean; seamless; vast; flooded with natural light; airy; intuitive; connected -- in other words, it's exactly what the UK can't build.

And it does look dragony inside and out (a design objective - although some say it looks like a giant thong!).

My jaw dropped when I entered the railway link area (pic above with the curved roof & uniformed lady) -- IT'S A MASSIVE BUILDING. Beijing Capital Airport is not just the largest airport in the world. The new terminal, at 10,600,000 square feet, or 244 acres, or 235 football pitches, will alone be bigger than any other airport, without having to add the current two terminals @ the airport into the equation.

It is larger than Heathrow's four older terminals rolled into one.

In fact, the size of the place is one drawback -- it takes 30 mins+ to walk & train from the immigration lines to the car park/railway station.

Beijing airport - the facts

Beijing Airport's new Terminal Three needed:

64 million cubic feet of concrete
500,000 tons of steel (the Eiffel tower is 7,300 tons)
41 million square feet of road paving
220 miles of pipelines
1850 miles of cable
447 lifts, escalators and automatic passenger belt

Asians have design of new terminals licked -- I need to write that comparison of airports which I've been meaning to write for months now.

The airport's Terminal 3 has been built to cater for the extra demand for flights to the Chinese capital expected to be created by the 2008 Olympics.

Designed by Foster + Partners, the firm behind developments at Chep Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong and Stansted Airport.

Travellers passing through the terminal next year will benefit from a sophisticated luggage handling system, a rail terminal to ferry passengers into the heart of Beijing and decor that carries subtle tones of traditional Chinese architecture.

The terminal is expected to increase the airport's total capacity to 62 million passengers, compared with the 48.6 million travellers seen last year at the hub.

When the new Beijing terminal opened three weeks ago, many column inches in the local China press were devoted to how Beijing achieved this WITH NO TEETHING PROBLEMS; e.g. in <4 years with only $xx million dollars - contrasting this with the fact that LHR's T5 lost baggage galore .. was 20+ years in the making @ $xxxxxx million dollars. *However, they neglected to mention the 2000 or so homes which were 'relocated' to make room for the new terminal/landing strip*

The Beijing airport authorities said 10,000 people had seen their homes demolished to make way for the new terminal - a fraction of the 1.5 million people that have been evicted to make way for all the city's new stadia, metro lines, and other Olympic-related development.

I read today that BAA might be disbanded (finally) in an effort to create more competition amongst UK airports. About time too --- LHR T3 is a national disgrace.

By the way, did you see this tragi-comic story of how a BA passenger died on a flight (from T5) and then the airline lost his luggage - which included his address book? His family could not invite his friends to his funeral. PR disaster after PR disaster. BA "The world's favourite airline"? Not any more.

"We are now planning a second airport," said Zhang Zhigong, Beijing airport's general manager. "We expect to start work on that in 2010."

It will be ready in 2015, when Mr Zhang expects even his new dragon to have reached capacity.

M