Beijing Capital Airport

Flying out of Beijing Capital Terminal 3 is many times a nightmare because of the immigration and security. On this occasion it took me 45 minutes to get through the long queue, in apparent rush hour time (at 7am, should it be rush hour?). This is the trouble with Terminal 3 only, but it is here that most international flights depart. Cannot avoid it as T1 and T2 are mainly domestic. The airport is modern but too large. It takes some 15 minutes' walk from the Dragonair lounge to Gate 16. It is bad that as a frequent flyer I had to suffer this time and again. There simply should be more security counters. Also, to use wifi, you need to get a code via your mobile phone. Do not really recommend this T3 but no choice.

Second visit to this airport. Arrived at 22.25 and experienced no problems, 35 minutes from landing to taxi. Departed at 23.55 on Emirates, 30 minutes for check-in, security and immigration, no problems. Didn't do any shopping, had nothing to eat so can't offer an opinion there. All in all a hassle free arrival and departure.

My husband and I had connecting flights to and from Thailand at Beijing airport. Horrible service at security check, very impolite and rude security workers. One of the Chinese security workers took everything out of my bag and when I was putting things away he said you best hurry as my plane was about to leave. We only had 30 minutes to transfer flights and had to go through 2 security check points. Also our bags were lost in Beijing even though we went through security in Thailand with our checked laugage. There were about 15 other people that had their luggage lost because of Beijing Airport. I have never experienced such unprofessional, rude, and impolite individuals as the workers at Beijing airport. One of the worst airports to transfer in.

Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3, where most international flights depart, is perhaps a showcase building, one of the largest of all airports, but it is not very user friendly. The fact is that it is too large, thus a walk to the gate may take three times than in a smaller airport. Then there are simply too many travellers nearly every time, resulting in long queues. It also happened once that I arrived at midnight and was kept waiting inside the plane for one hour. Together with sometime unexplained traffic control, this is one of the airports that I tend to hate, despite its grandeur in appearance. Hope there is improvement of administration.

PEK is an airport best avoided. My off peak nt'l to Int'l transfer took approximately 90 minutes. 45 minutes being in the mess of a security line. My departure from PEK took approximately 120 minutes, most of which was wasted standing in lines for immigration and then security. Security itself took 70 minutes to clear. Understaffed, poorly managed and uncomfortable as people were jammed one on top of the other with many coughing. The immigration lines are not clearly marked as which ones are for transit visas on arrival. (This is an issue when arriving late in the day). I was sent away from the regular line to the APEC business visa desk even though I am not an APEC card holder. As an international transit hub, PEK fails for the simple reason that transfers and departures can take too long, much longer than its regional rivals. Airfares though China may be cheaper, but if one puts a value on ones own comfort, and time, then PEK is an expensive proposition. On a positive note, I found the immigration and security personnel professional, polite and courteous. There is a wide assortment of restaurants and shopping throughout the terminal. I have no intention of using this airport again until it addresses the mess that its "security" lines create.

After I read reviews about transiting in Beijing I was quite concerned about my 1h 20m international to international connection. In the event I need not have worried. The airport was largely deserted and having done a little research in advance, finding the International to International transfer was easy. The only issue was that the transfer desks appear never to be staffed and the way from arrivals into the customs area has the appearance of being closed - if you just ignore that and head for the crowd in the distance trying to enter China it's no problem. I easily found where I should go using the airport signage. I was through in about 5 minutes and easily made my connection even though it was at E57, one of the further away gates. Coming back through Beijing I had a 5 hour lay over. The modern and cavernous terminal felt empty and in some areas I was on my own. If the smog isn't too bad, many areas are good for viewing arrival and departure runways if you like plane spotting. My only complaint is that the shops seem set up exclusively for the higher income customer and it was very hard to buy a simple bottle of coke. I found only 1 shop that sold drinks. There are many vending machines but you will need a few Yuan to use them (prices were from 4RMB). The restaurants and the food look great (I did not eat but looked good) and the prices of dining was very reasonable. If you don't want designer goods though the shops will hold little of interest to pass the time. In some areas they had fully reclining seats, which are great for getting some sleep and unlike many other airports, there was plenty of seating to go around. Chinese culture can be a bit brusque compared to say, Japan and staff grasp of English is limited - but not as limited as my grasp of Mandarin. A little patience and politeness goes a long way to nicer service I found. Beautiful if somewhat over the top airport. Obviously China built it to impress but clearly they don't expect the common people to use it much. I went through the airport twice in a week over the Easter holiday and it was a breeze. The "free" Wi-Fi" was virtually unusable - half the sites you could not access and that when you could stay connected for longer than 5 minutes at a time

Dreadful airport. Had a nine hour layover but did not have boarding pass. Transit desk staff were unable to issue one as the flight was more than 3 hours away. This does not seem to have been a problem in many of the Asian airports I've travelled through. We had to go through the poorly signposted immigration department, only to be told to join another line to pick up the transit visa. We then had to go out of the arrivals area and then wait in the departure area. There were very few seats. The ones that are there are very uncomfortable. Washrooms are dirty. Somewhat dirty terminal. Once we got our boarding passes, we then had to go back through immigration and catch a train to the original terminal building. Security was atrocious. They confiscated my battery pack which had previously passed through security in the USA, Canada and many European and Asian airports. Overall, I think this is a badly maintained airport in a Norman Foster shell. Avoid this place at all costs if you're here on transit. Stop in Shanghai or Hong Kong instead.

Terrible Security Control, took best part of 1 hour check in to gate. Immigration no problem. Security a mess. Has to be possible to do better. Shanghai does not have this delay and has the same number of passengers going through it.

I arrived at Beijing Capital airport T3 for my connection to Europe. My total lay-over time was less then 2 hours. I can tell you, you need this 2 hours even if you are Platinum member of Air China. There is no service attitude at the airport at all. Specially the security is rude and impolite. No priority lanes at all. I also dislike that there is no dedicated smoking area at the airport. I will surely try to aviod this airport in the future.

We had a 12 hour stopover in Beijing on the way to New Zealand and were very impressed with the airport. There was plenty to do in terms of shopping and there were a lot of different restaurants with a variety of good food. We found the airport very comfortable and relaxing and even managed to find some place to have a sleep. My only complaint is that the staff in the security check were quite rude and abrupt. All in all the time passed very quickly and I was very happy with this airport.