Beijing International Airport Terminal 3 the largest terminal in the world: China has put into operation Beijing International Airport terminal 3, which now takes the honour of the world’s largest airport terminal building.
The world’s largest terminal was put into operation on Friday 29th of February 2008 and will initially see flights from Sichuan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Qatar Airlines, Qantas Airways, British Airways and El Al Israel Airlines, with a further 21 airlines using this massive terminal from 29 march 2008.
Beijing International Airport Terminal 3 Some facts and figures:
- Terminal Building Length: 2 miles (3.2km)
- Floor space 14 Million Square feet 1.3 Million Square meters (260 football fields)
- 5 story
- 300 check-in desks, processing up to 7000 passengers hourly
- Development Cost: US$ 3.75 Billion
- 64 Chinese and Western Restaurants
- 84 Retail shops
- 175 Escalators & 173 elevators
- Estimated time for bags to reach carousels: 10 Minutes (This one will have to be seen to be believed)
- Terminal 3 is 20% bigger than all of Heathrow’s 5 terminals combined
- Build time 4 years
- Accommodate 50 million passengers annually by 2020
Beijing International Airport’s Terminal 3 building is truly a giant in the air transportation world, personally I can’t wait to go and take a look, in the mean time expect some articles about the business lounge facilities of Terminal 3 in the near future, along with some airport reports filtering thru to the Business Travel Guru forums.
All Oneworld airlines will operate from check-in desks in the terminals area C
For Oneworld lounge members lounges facilities are located one level up from the main departures concourse level which is the BGS Premier Lounge is located on the 3rd floor near Boarding Gates E19 and E13