SIA to launch flights to Beijing Daxing International Airport in November

SINGAPORE - Those travelling to Beijing will soon have a new flight option when Singapore Airlines (SIA) launches daily flights between Singapore and Beijing Daxing International Airport in November.

SIA will also increase the number of weekly flights to Beijing Capital International Airport, from 18 to 21, starting from Aug 5.

With these new and additional flights, SIA will have 28 weekly flights to Beijing from November, the airline said in a statement on June 24.

With the addition of Beijing Daxing International Airport, the SIA Group – which comprises SIA and its low-cost subsidiary Scoot – will serve 24 destinations in mainland China. Other destinations include Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu.

Located in the south of Beijing, Daxing airport gives passengers convenient access to the Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin regions, where several world cultural heritage sites are located, via a network of highways, subways and railways, said SIA.

It was opened in 2019 and cost 450 billion yuan (S$84 billion), according to media reports.

Airlines such as China Eastern Airlines also offer flights from Singapore to Beijing’s Daxing airport.

The phoenix-shaped airport, abbreviated PKX, will help ease pressure on the existing Capital International Airport in the capital’s north-east.

China Daily reported in May that the number of international and regional passengers passing through Beijing’s Capital airport exceeded one million for four consecutive months, with over five million trips as at May 16.

This is a jump of more than 300 per cent compared with the same period in 2023.

Designed by Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid, Beijing’s Daxing airport boasts four runways and is located about 46km from Tiananmen Square – almost twice the distance from the Capital airport to central Beijing.

According to Daxing airport’s website, it takes 20 minutes to get to the city centre by train and 80 minutes by taxi.

The inaugural flight SQ810 to Beijing Daxing is scheduled to depart Singapore at 12.30am on Nov 11 and arrive at 6.35am.

The return flight SQ811 will depart from Beijing Daxing at 9.25am on Nov 11 and arrive in Singapore at 3.50pm.

SIA will operate its Boeing 787-10 aircraft, which features 36 business class seats and 301 economy class seats, on this new service.

Mr Dai Haoyu, SIA’s acting senior vice-president for marketing planning, said China is a key market for the SIA Group and that this new flight allows SIA to offer an additional daily service to Beijing, which is a “popular destination for both tourist and business travellers”.

Beijing Daxing International Airport’s vice-president Kong Yue said SIA is the first foreign airline to operate services from the airport to Singapore.

“We believe the inception of SIA (flights) at Beijing Daxing International Airport will bring about a renewed sense of energy and opportunities, fulfilling the travel demand between both countries as we jointly work together for more good things to come,” he said.

Commenting on the planned launch of flights to Daxing airport, Mr Mayur Patel, head of Asia at aviation data consultancy OAG, told The Straits Times that the move is “strategically important as it allows SIA to tap a larger catchment area, including the regions bordering Beijing and Langfang in Hebei province”.

“By operating flights into Daxing, SIA can attract new passenger traffic from these areas, enhancing its market reach,” said Mr Patel, adding that the new route will also give travellers more flexibility and connectivity to travel in the area.

Independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie from Sobie Aviation said Daxing airport allows airlines, including SIA, to increase the number of flights to Beijing, which they may not have been able to do so previously at Beijing’s Capital airport.

He foresees the number of flights at Daxing airport to expand gradually, and that there will be more Beijing-Singapore flights for both SIA and Chinese carriers.

“How quickly that happens depends on demand and how fast the Singapore-Beijing market grows,” he told ST.

Mr Sobie also said that with 21 weekly flights to Beijing’s Capital airport in August, SIA will fully restore its number of flights to the capital to pre-pandemic levels.

During the pre-pandemic period, SIA operated 21 weekly services to Beijing’s Capital airport.

However, Mr Sobie noted that the capacity during the pre-pandemic period was higher as larger aircraft such as the A380 was used.

According to OAG data, the number of available seats a week in August 2019 is 6,823 as compared with 6,090 in the same period in August 2024, when the number of weekly flights increased from 18 to 21.

Mr Patel added that the difference in seat numbers is the absence of A380 aircraft from the planned flights in 2024.

Tickets for SIA’s flights to Daxing airport will progressively be made available for sale through various distribution channels from June 24.