Daxing International Airport unveils streamlined customs system

Projected to be among the world's busiest civil aviation hubs, Beijing Daxing International Airport on Sunday greeted its first international passengers with a streamlined customs service, which has cut quarantine-inspection and luggage-clearance times.

In a major reform, the airport has worked with the capital's customs authorities to combine security checks with luggage clearance so that travelers can finish the two tasks at once.

The time needed to reach immigration inspection officials has been slashed considerably, said Zhang Bo, a customs official at the airport.

He said data has been shared to reduce overlapping checkups without jeopardizing safety standards.

For inbound visitors, facial recognition, high-speed CT scans and a string of other cutting-edge technologies are used to make quarantine inspection and luggage clearance as seamless as possible.

The time required for quarantine inspection has been minimized by the installation of 15 gates equipped with infrared temperature-measurement technologies, through which travelers are required to pass slowly through with hats off.

Customs official Wang Junqiao said the facilities, which span 70 meters, help quickly detect anomalies in travelers' temperatures so as to keep infectious diseases at bay. Cameras hanging over the gates can also be used to detect radioactive substances and passenger's identities.

Customs officer Zhao Zhao said the high-speed CT scans have allowed international arrivals to walk past a gate dragging their trolley cases and have luggage clearance finished in a couple of seconds. Previously luggage had to be piled on a conveyer to go through a scanning machine, which roughly took up to several minutes.

The conveniences were disclosed as the starfish-shaped facility began its scheduled international flights Sunday morning. An Air China flight to Bangkok carrying around 150 passengers was the first to leave on Sunday, followed by another eight outbound and six inbound flights.

Zhang Yuntao, who left a nearby hotel at around 5 am to catch the 7:50 am flight to Thailand, his first flight from the new airport, said he had arrived too early, not knowing the streamlined clearance process.

"I would not be in such a hurry next time," said the 20-year-old college student from nearby Hebei province.