China Southern Airlines plans to launch flights to Kazakhstan from the new Beijing airport, Daxing International Airport, starting on January 25 next year, QazMonitor reports citing the Civil Aviation Committee.
The flights on the Almaty–Beijing route will operate three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, utilizing Airbus A320 aircraft. The Committee notes that the airline initiated the launch, considering the recently established visa-free regime between the two countries.
Beijing Daxing International Airport is one of the largest airports in the world, located 46 kilometers from the center of Beijing. It was opened on September 25, 2019. The airport has four runways, and in 2022, the facility's capacity was 45 million passengers per year. By 2025, the airport plans to increase its capacity to 72 million passengers, and in the long term, to 100 million passengers per year.
China Southern Airlines is one of the three largest airlines in China, the largest air carrier in Asia in terms of fleet size, and the sixth largest in the world in terms of passenger traffic. The airline has a fleet of more than 650 aircraft (A319/320/321/330/350, B737/777/787, ARJ21, C919) and flies to more than 230 cities in China and around the world.