Airport Hub · Jiangbei (CKG)
First in central and western China with four runways and four terminals, an 80-million-passenger ceiling, and a second airport already in planning — Jiangbei is building for a decade it has already started.
Terminal 3B, opened 9 April 2025, is 363,000 m² of X-shaped concourse — the world’s largest satellite — with 71 contact stands, gardens themed on the “mountain city, river city”, and 3D-printed interiors, riding a straddle-beam monorail APM to T3A. It handles domestic flows while T3A takes the international banks.
The strategy paper behind it is explicit: Chongqing is one of seven national gateway hubs in the CAAC’s “3+7+N” system, with Europe and Southeast Asia as priority corridors, and a second airport at Bishan — cargo- and regional-focused — already in planning. The city’s borders processed a record 760,000-plus inbound international visitors in 2025.
The rail rule is simple but strict: Line 10 serves both Terminal 2 and Terminal 3; Line 3 reaches only Terminal 2. Flying from T3, Line 10 is your only direct rail option — and usually the fastest from the center regardless.
The airport sits about 19 km north of downtown. Domestic passengers now move through T3B’s satellite via the APM — budget ten extra minutes for the ride, and enjoy the fact that the newest concourse is also the emptiest-feeling.
CKG is one of the few Chinese mega-airports that still has headroom — 80 million capacity against ~50 million actual — so queues are shorter than the superlatives suggest. Fly in via T3A, out via T3B, and take Line 10 both ways; the monorail ride between the terminals is the cheapest sightseeing in the city.
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