China opens new Beijing airport to serve travel boom

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping presided Wednesday over the inauguration of a second international airport for Beijing with a terminal billed as the world's biggest.

Beijing Daxing International Airport, built in less than five years at a cost of 120 billion yuan ($17 billion), is designed to handle 72 million passengers a year.

The Chinese capital's main airport is the world's second-busiest after Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and is nearing capacity.

Daxing includes a terminal billed as the world's biggest at 1 million square meters (11 million square feet).

The late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid designed the airport, which is said to be in the shape of a phoenix.

The airport is about 45 kilometers (nearly 30 miles) south of downtown Beijing.