Huge accrued financial losses at Beijing Capital Airport – COVID and dual hub operations to blame

China was the origin of the coronavirus COVID-19, and accordingly its aviation business suffered from its pandemic onslaught worse than other countries.

Yet within China the impact varied between cities and regions, for numerous reasons, and one airport - Guangzhou Baiyun - briefly became the world's busiest, outshining airports such as Atlanta, Dubai International and Beijing Capital; the latter having been the world's second busiest in 2019 and one of only two airports ever to exceed 100mppa.

As Beijing Capital is the country's main gateway to the capital one might have expected it to have resumed full operations by now, but that is not the case. It has slipped to 15th busiest globally in 2025, and passenger traffic is only at 70% of 2019 levels.

Worse still, it has been hemorrhaging money, losing as much as USD1.6 billion over five years, with further losses anticipated for 2025.

With luck it might break even in 2026.

The reasons for this state of affairs are more complex than just the lingering impact of the pandemic, and include ageing infrastructure and the consequence of the opening of Daxing Airport in 2019, which is now proving to be a classic case of the strategic issues that can be caused by dual hub operation.