By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-01 08:36

A view of Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport on Thursday night, a couple of hours before it started operation. [China Daily]

Liu Zhaolong, advisor to China Civil Aviation Airport, said the real test for T3 would be on March 26, when Air China and 18 other carriers move in and the passenger flow will reach 100,000 a day.

Air China's own and code-sharing flights account for 60 percent of the total at the airport now.

Also, the restriction on the number of daily flights to and from the airport would be lifted on March 26, said Li Jiaxiang, acting director of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC). "With T3's opening, Beijing airport can handle up to 1,800 flights a day," he said.

Safety concerns prompted the CAAC to order the airport to cut the number of daily flights by 48 to 1,050 in October.

Designed by British architect Norman Foster, also the man behind Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok Airport, T3 has special bridges to handle Airbus's giant double-decked A380.

It has almost double the number of boarding gates of the old terminals and nearly 300 check-in desks.

A train link, to open before the Olympics, will zip people downtown in about 15 minutes on the 28-km line, and the high-tech baggage system will handle 19,800 bags an hour.

Six carriers, Sichuan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas Airways, British Airways and El Al Israel Airlines, will use Terminal 3 initially. More will move in from March 26.

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