The airport’s design was revealed last week by Zhu Wenxin of the airport’s construction team. Measuring 1,144 meters in length from east to west, and 996 meters from north to south, the six-pointed, starfish-shaped airport will serve as a transportation hub that includes facilities for air travel, high-speed rail, subway, buses, expressways, and an inter-airport transportation system.

The airport will serve passengers with 78 gates over two floors, the top designated for international flights and the bottom for domestic. The airport will feature five airside concourses, one central hall and a hotel.

A rapid transit line will connect the new airport with Beijing South Railway Station, allowing passengers to travel between the two destinations in just 30 minutes.

Passengers arriving by train will enter the airport from below, through the 340 square meter transport center. Instead of going through the above domestic arrival hall, they can enter the airport through the transport center’s security checkpoint.

A 13,000 square meter commercial district will be built at the center of the six arms of the “starfish” construct.

All flights from Beijing Nanyuan Airport will be diverted to this new airport, which has yet to be officially named.

The new Beijing Airport is 46 kilometers south of the capital, further than the current Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeast.

This past August, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced that China Eastern and China Southern Airlines would relocate from Beijing Capital International Airport to the new airport where they would exclusively offer their services.

Citing a rise in air travel which saw Chinese take 4 billion domestic trips and over 100 million international trips last year, the CAAC plans to not only increase the number of airports but also the number of domestic and international routes.

Guangzhou Baiyun Airport is expected to open a new passenger terminal and transportation center with a rapid transit link in 2018. Meanwhile, Chengdu has scaled back plans for its $11 billion airport.

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Other international airlines that will move to new Beijing airport include Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Korean Air, and other SkyTeam Alliance members.

Air China will not be moving its services, along with other Star Alliance partners including United Airlines, Air Canada, Singapore Airlines and Japanese airline ANA.

The new Beijing airport, which will also serve nearby Tianjin and parts of Hebei, is located in Daxing District, 50 kilometers south of the city center. Experts say airliners will likely offer discounted rates in order to attract customers to the new airport.

Accounting for 40 percent of its expected traffic, the new airport’s main carriers, China Eastern and China Southern Airlines, will be given preferential treatment with regard to flight routes and ground services, said the CAAC.

US aviation magazine, Air Transport World, named Air China as the big winner in the relocation. China Travel News cited an unidentified analyst who holds the same view:

“Contrary to the three major airports New York and the five major airports in London that allocate airlines bases according to market environment, Beijing’s strategy of allocating airlines to the  two international airports based on airline alliance groups is good for passenger transfer. Air China is apparently the biggest winner as it can maintain its base in Beijing Capital Airport, whereas China’s Eastern’s move to the new airport will deal a blow to the carrier’s flagship Beijing-Shanghai service.”

The Beijing new airport will cost an estimated 80 billion yuan and process 100 million passengers annually.

China’s commercial aviation industry is limited by the number of flight paths available to them, often resulting in delays. With a whole new airport, airliners can add more flights and launch new routes.

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Located south of the capital, in Daxing District, the as-yet unnamed airport is 46 kilometers south of Tian’anmen Square, and 67 kilometers from Beijing Capital International Airport. The airport will feature a stop on the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed route located in an underground station.

The new airport will also serve as a transportation hub with links to the subway, expressways, Beijing Airport Bus routes, local buses and an inter-airport transportation system. A rapid transit line in development that connects the new airport to Beijing South Railway Station will carry passengers to each destination in just 30 minutes.

The airport will have four runways, 150 parking aprons for passenger jets, 24 parking aprons for cargo aircraft, 14 maintenance areas and a 700,000 square meter terminal building.

The 80 billion RMB project is scheduled to be completed by September 2019.

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In 2014, President Xi expressed dissatisfaction with China’s “weird architecture”. Although foreign architects have been invited for years to submit unique designs, Chinese distaste for strange buildings has resulted in a government ban on the so-called “weird architecture”.

The ban, which was implemented early this year, was too late for Beijing’s new airport. As a prominent blogger on Weibo pointed out, the design of what is expected to be the largest airport in the world might, when viewed from a certain perspective, resemble part of the female anatomy.

Yesterday, Yang Jinlin posted a photo of the model of the new airport, along with this text:

“Here’s a bird’s-eye view of the design for the new Beijing Airport. Do you know the name of the designer?”

There is nothing really provocative about Yang’s post; but, netizens quickly followed Yang’s lead and remarked that the resemblance was uncanny: “This is worship of the reproductive (organs).” Others simply didn’t see it: “It’s clearly a starfish…everyone’s imagination is running too wild.”

The architect who designed Beijing’s new airport, Zaha Hadid, is a famous English designer of Iraqi descent. Despite her fame, Chinese netizens strangely insulted her with names like “witch”, “female devil”, “crazy”, and “alien”.

Most netizens make sense of new buildings by referring to them by what they resemble. Sometimes the comparison is benign, such as how the Shanghai World Financial Center looks like a bottle opener. Other times, the comparison is much more comical, such as how the People’s Daily Building resembles a penis (above left), or how the CCTV Tower looks like a pair of pants (above right).

The comparison prompted one netizen to complain, “The (building for the) People’s Daily is standing; the (building for the) CCTV is squatting; and now the airport in the capital is lying down. These new landmark buildings are such nonsense!! Oh Beijing, Beijing: where have your characteristics gone?”

Regardless of how netizens feel about the design, Beijing’s new airport is currently under construction, which began last year and is expected to finish in 2019.

If you happen to be one of the people who can’t see what all the fuss is about, then don’t expect the Chinese media to tell you. In news reports about the scandal, no mention is made of what the airport design resembles.

But if you do need some help, this Weibo user helps us with this particular interpretation:

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