Beijing Capital International Airport Review

After my flight from Zurich with Swiss I landed for the first time in 10 years time at Beijing Capital International airport.

I noticed that is was very clean but also very big, maybe too big.
After a walk for about 20 minutes from our gate, we arrived at immigration and there was a long line.

After finishing the immigration proceedings I walked down the stairs to collect my luggage.
It was not clearly marked with signs where to collect my luggage.
But I found the way to the train which would bring me to the area to collect my luggage.
Normally it is a short train ride but the airport is so big that it took me about 10 minutes in the train to arrive at the luggage terminal.
And the train went fast, but it was a ride from at least 6 km, the longest ride I ever made at an Airport.
Staff English skills are hit and miss, if you ask them the same question they hear many times a day, they can handle it but the slightest deviation and they struggle but they are friendly.
There is lots of walking to be done.
Only one person was working at the security so it took a while, maybe because we arrived in the early morning.

I collected my luggage and went to the taxi stand to get a ride to the Hotel.
I was standing at the taxi stand and a person took my luggage and walked away to the car-park.
It was a illegal cab driver who charged me double for the ride, so watch out for that.
I only paid the amount that normally a ride would cost to the CDB area with is about 120 Yuan.

BCIA is too big, also there is no free Wifi and in the Business Lounge you have to register first with your passport to get a login.

Website airport: http://en.bcia.com.cn/

Andy Smulders
Date: 23 March 2012

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