Beijing's two airports are not interchangeable

Beijing Capital, PEK, sits in the northeast of the city. Beijing Daxing, PKX, opened in 2019 and sits roughly 46 kilometres to the south, just past the Hebei border. With the roads clear, the drive between them takes around ninety minutes. On a weekday evening, budget two hours.

I put the distances first because the most common booking mistake I see from first-time visitors is an inbound flight into one airport and an onward flight out of the other, bought because the fares looked good, without anyone noticing the two are 70 kilometres apart. On a single through ticket with a long layover it can still work. With a hotel booked in the middle of the city, it usually ruins your first and last day.

Which one you should fly into

The answer has less to do with the airport than with the address you have booked.

• Staying around the Forbidden City, Dongcheng, Sanlitun or anywhere in the old hutong core, Capital is closer and the transfer is simpler.
• Staying near Beijing South railway station, or continuing on to Tianjin or Hebei, Daxing saves you a great deal of time.
• Connecting the next morning to Xi'an, Chengdu or Shanghai, check which airport your domestic flight leaves from. Plenty of those connections cross the city, and that is where people get caught.
• On a long layover with no plans to go into town, Capital's Terminal 3 has more food and more places to sit out the night.

Getting into the city from Capital (PEK)

Capital has three terminals. Terminal 3 handles most long-haul international arrivals, Terminal 2 takes a mix of domestic and international, and Terminal 1 is small and mostly serves Hainan Airlines. Free shuttle buses link the terminals, and the airport express does not stop at Terminal 1.

The Airport Express train

This is the cheapest tidy option. The train runs from Terminal 3 to Terminal 2, then on to Sanyuanqiao on Line 10 and Dongzhimen on Lines 2 and 13. The ride is about 25 minutes and costs around 25 yuan. Services begin a little after 6am and the last trains leave close to 11pm, so a very late arrival means a taxi instead.

Taxis

The official rank is clearly signed outside each terminal. A metered cab into the centre runs roughly 100 to 130 yuan and takes 40 to 60 minutes outside peak hours. Queue in the marked lane and ignore anyone inside arrivals who offers you a car; the unofficial drivers ask for three or four times the meter.

Shuttle buses

Airport buses leave for several points around the city, including the main railway stations. They are cheap, but they sit in the same traffic as everybody else and are awkward if you do not read Chinese.

Getting into the city from Daxing (PKX)

Daxing is one enormous terminal laid out like a starfish. Everything is under a single roof, which makes it easier to navigate than Capital, though it is a long walk from gate to exit.

The Daxing Airport Express

The express runs to Caoqiao, where you change to Lines 10 and 19. It takes about 20 minutes and costs around 35 yuan. Quiet, clean, and by some distance the fastest way into the southern half of the city.

The intercity train to Beijing West

Daxing has its own railway station downstairs, served by the Beijing to Xiong'an intercity line. If you are heading for Beijing West or travelling onward to the south, this is quicker than the express and puts you straight into the high-speed network.

Taxis and ride-hailing

Daxing is far out. A cab into the centre is realistically 180 to 250 yuan and an hour or more. Ride-hailing works well, but set a specific meeting point in the app, because the curbside pickup zones sit on different levels.

How much time the transfer takes

• Capital to the centre by express: about 40 minutes door to door, plus ten minutes of walking at either end.
• Daxing to the centre by express: about 50 minutes, including the change at Caoqiao.
• Between the two airports: 90 minutes by road if you are lucky.
• Check-in cutoff for international flights is 60 minutes at both, and both airports are big enough that I would not cut it finer than that.

Small things that save a lot of time

• Set up a payment app before you land. Both airports have Wi-Fi, but the sign-in pages are far less annoying once you already have data.
• Download an offline metro map. Signage gives station names in Chinese and English, but ticket machines do not always.
• Carry a screenshot of your hotel address in Chinese characters. It is worth more to a taxi driver than your pronunciation will ever be.
• If you land after midnight, book a hotel near the airport rather than racing into town. Very little in the city is open at 2am beyond convenience stores.
• Left luggage counters exist at both airports, which is useful if you would rather spend a long connection seeing one thing in Beijing than sitting in a hotel.

So which one

Fly into the airport that matches your hotel, and if the fares push you the other way, treat the extra transfer as part of the ticket price. For most first trips that means Capital when you are staying in the historic centre, and Daxing when you are heading south by rail. Neither is a bad airport. They are simply a long way apart, and that is the only thing really worth planning around.

Originally published on 71Asia Tours blog.