Beijing Capital Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Was at this airport for ~7 hours during a transit unfortunately. Never seen a capital airport so unsatisfying! The airport architecture and setup itself is completely normal and you end up walking a lot like many airports of this size. But this airport has 10% of what you would expect from a capital airport of this size in any other part of the world: For drinks: Starbucks or Costa or vending machines. No bar, duty free for strong alcohols only. For hot food: Pizza Hut or KFC. No Chinese restaurant or fast food that you would expect in the capital of China. For shopping: 2-3 shops for perfumes or clothing. But that's pretty much it. most of them are shut for some reason. There is only 1 small Chinese souvenir boutique which was about 20 square meter! I ended up buying some boxes dried noddle from this souvenir shop to get hot food other than Pizza Hut or KFC! Fortunately they have hot water dispensers a bit everywhere (one of the only positives). I saw on Air China website that if you had a connection longer than 2 or 4 hours (can't remember) you could access their lounge for free. Unfortunately I didn't know which one! So I went to the first one I found to ask. It was the Business class lounge (I knew it wasn't that one). But when I asked the reception staff for the right lounge, the only answer they could give me with their super bad English was "You can't access this lounge". And they were not aware of this benefit for long connection. Crazy! By pure luck I ended up walking by another place which was a "Transit Lounge". This time the reception staff person didn't even speak a work of English! But used a mobile app to communicate. That where I discovered you apparently need to book your slot BEFORE you trip to get access to the lounge for free. Otherwise you have to pay! I also discovered later that you may not even be granted a slot even if you try booking in advance. Insane! So we ended up spending the 7 hours in a freezing cold airport. Don't if it was the air conditioning which was cold or simply not working as it was ~10 degrees outside. Were were on a bench, trying to charge our phone one of the only 2 places of the whole airport where you can plug your charger (with several plugs not working). They had many old traditional USB charging plugs, but our phones cables were USB-C only (yes we are in 2023 and not 2010 anymore!). When it comes to wifi, you can get free wifi. But everything is blocked. It's pretty much useless for someone coming from Europe like me as pretty much all the websites/apps I was trying to use were blocked. The only positives of this airport: many toilets which had 2 staffs (one men and one women) assigned to each of them! So, super clean. Tons of fairly comfortable benches with armrests in the middle which allows you to lay down for a nap. That said, it would have been nice to see some lounge chairs like you have in most big international airports. An airport to avoid at all costs!

✅ Trip Verified | I arrived from Hong Kong and had to wait for 5 hours for my connecting flight to Frankfurt. All transfer passengers had to have their passports checked and had to go through airport security again, only one channel was there, so it took quite some time for the people to clear that check. Then we arrived in the international section of Terminal 2. There were toilets, a lot of closed shops (we are talking 9:30 p.m. here), free hot and cold drinking water and 2 open stalls, one Costa Coffee and the other Starbucks. All restaurants were closed (KFC closes at 4 p.m.) The terminal was pretty dark and it seemed there were only 2 flights that night. Of course airport security took away the drinks purchased in Hong Kong's duty free zone. I really recommend passengers to bring their own food to Beijing Airport, as you will not be really able to buy some. There were some vending machines, but they only accepted Alipay/Wechatpay (most transit passangers will not have that) and RMB bills in small denominations.

✅ Trip Verified | Transited twice. First international to international. It was a bit messy as I followed the sign for international travel but the transit gate have been closed. There have been two transit gates, the other one was on the other side of the terminal and no signs lead to there. Need to ask several staff to find the way. However security check was fast and efficient. Terminal itself had several shops but many of them have been closed. As I stayed in the lounge I did not use any restaurants. Walking distances have been quiet far. Second transit was domestic to international. Need to use a train between the two terminals and that one have been totally overcrowded. Immigration went smooth and fast. The terminals have been perfectly clean.

✅ Trip Verified | Worst airport experience departing from Terminal 2 in the middle of August, boarding at 7:00 am. After security, there's absolutely nothing to do but wait. Stores closed. Beverage vending machines empty and not accepting international payment cards. Chinese payment apps (WeChat/Alipay) are unusable by foreigners. So it's hardly possible to just get anything to eat or drink, and the only shop (opening right before boarding started) selling hot beverages doesn't have coffee. Need to use a passport to access censored Wi-Fi (no Google, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). Staff speaking terrible english. Horrible experience for a so-called international airport. To be avoided at all costs.

✅ Trip Verified | The capital airport has convenient transportation. There is an airport express rail which can go directly to the center of the city. There are many automatic check-in machines when arriving at the check-in, and there is a special person for guidance. However, the number of manual check-in is small, which leads to serious queuing. Although airports expanded the security check before, we still have a long queue. There's a lot of restaurants at the airport. It's very good. There are a lot of mobile phone charging areas in the rest area, and WiFi is very fast, which is good. The boarding corridor bridge is very advanced. Departure and arrival are separated. But the baggage claim area is very small, which does not conform to the style of the capital airport. It is very crowded and uncomfortable. The guidelines are perfect.

✅ Trip Verified | I had two experiences in Beijing Airport. Both of them were fairly traumatizing. When I arrived in China is was August 2019. I'm an English teacher and the airport had 3 separate security checks for foreigners, which is thoroughly unnecessary and very Chinese. But most importantly, I could not find a bathroom when I got off the plane. Anywhere. I begged half a dozen staff members for help. I was running around a wing of a very large airport just begging any Chinese person I could find for a bathroom and it was horrible. Almost no one speaks English at Beijing airport, which I feel is a very important point to make. But that cannot possibly compare to having my valuables stolen from me. When I left China, I was fleeing the coronavirus epidemic. On Feb 1, I entered Beijing airport with 10,000 Yuan. It was there in my onboard luggage. You know, so no one would take it from me. But the scanning people took my onboard luggage for "another scan". I was so distracted with my panic to leave China that I didn't even consider they might be stealing all of the jewelry, cameras, cash and oh yes, irreplaceable nature photography I kept on a 1 TB flash drive. That one really hurt. Yes, I should have downloaded it to cloud. I didn't think they would take it from me. I was pretty traumatized by all of this. This is the worst airport in the entire world and I've been to many countries that I can compare it to. I'm sure they are much nicer to Chinese nationals or anyone that speaks fluent Chinese. But if you don't, forget about being helped and you can kiss your savings and your valuables good bye!

Not Verified | CA 174 Dec 12, 2019. Beijing is the worst airport we have had the misfortune of visiting after travelling internationally for nearly 45 years. A late flight from Sydney gave us 70 minutes to connect to our flight to Zurich. There were no signs or anyone available to give directions to the transit area. By some luck we found the correct place. The airport security staff were rude, aggressive, incompetent and threatening. Passengers were rounded up and spoken to like animals. I had four 80 ml bottles, only one of which contained liquid, and a small torch. All of these were confiscated (stolen?) without explanation. My wife was subjected to the most humiliating and intimate body search by a rude security woman. I had my passport taken from me and my name and passport number recorded, again this was done rudely and without explanation. We just made our connecting flight with minutes to spare. It seems that the intention of the Beijing security system is to humiliate and threaten passengers. You get the impression that if you ask for an explanation or argue with them you will miss your flight or worse. After all of this I wasn’t surprised when I arrived in Copenhagen to discover my luggage was still in Beijing. We will never travel to or through China again.

Not Verified | Beijing is the worst airport we have had the misfortune of visiting after travelling internationally for nearly 45 years. A late flight from Sydney gave us 70 minutes to connect to our flight to Zurich. There were no signs or anyone available to give directions to the transit area. By some luck we found the correct transfer area. The airport security staff were rude, aggressive, incompetent and threatening. Passengers were rounded up and spoken to like animals. I had four empty 80 ml bottles and a small torch which were confiscated (stolen?) without explanation. My wife was subjected to the most humiliating and intimate body search by a rude security woman. I had my passport taken from me and my name and passport number recorded, again this was done rudely and without explanation. We just made our connecting flight with minutes to spare. It seems that the intention of the Beijing security system is to humiliate and threaten passengers. You get the impression that if you ask for an explanation or argue with them you will miss your flight or worse. We will never travel to or through China again.

Not Verified | The worst airport experience. Airport is very cold. Except at the gates there is nowhere to sit or relax. We were in transit and my daughter zippo was taken from her suitcase when we didn't even have access to it as it was sent straight from New Zealand to France. I will not go thru Beijing airport anymore. Couldn't access any website thru wifi unless you had a VPN.

Not Verified | The worst airport with the most disorganised and rude security. We were transiting through Beijing from the UK and on the way to Tokyo. I wish the staff at security would take a trip to Tokyo to see how it should be done. Security was mayhem to put it mildly. The staff shout at you as if they're rounding up cattle. The staff look harassed and they are unfriendly. It takes a long time to go through security and they speak very little English and bark orders at you. They rummage inside the bags and throw things on the trays and conveyor belt. The staff need to be better managed and need extensive training in customer service. In Tokyo the experience is fast, smooth, polite and so easy! Additionally, the vending machines in the airport are useless. They don't take cards or cash and buying a bottle of water is almost impossible! Nothing to eat or drink! I don't recommend this airport and will do my very best to avoid transiting through Beijing again.