Flying into the future

New opportunities

Tian Tian, a 22-year-old native of Daxing, is one of the inhabitants in the region to benefit. He relocated to a new home in 2015 to make way for airport construction.

"Previously, my grandmother often walked about 30 minutes to the farmers market for fruit and vegetables," he said. "But the supermarket in our community can serve people more quickly."

He recalled that his old house in the village was often filled with dust in the summer, and the heating was insufficient in winter, which was a huge problem for him and his family.

"I am glad the newly renovated buildings are pretty clean and we only need to clean once a day," he said.

Airport construction also brought new employment opportunities. Tian got a job at the airport in 2017 as a storage transport engineer at the China National Aviation Fuel Group. After a year of intensive training and internship focused on fuel storage, Tian became a regular employee in May.

Every day at 8 am, Tian travels from his home in Yufa town to the airport for work. He arrives in less than 25 minutes.

Dressed in blue overalls, he shuttles through a warehouse and carefully checks fuel pumps and metering conditions until about 4:30 pm.

"After a year of training, I fell in love with this work and hope to make a contribution to the airport," he said.

His salary also improved greatly. Tian now earns about 90,000 yuan ($12,600).

Like Tian, many other residents' livelihoods improved because of the new airport, with opportunities for better jobs and homes. For those who lost work, the Daxing district government provides subsidies of more than 20,000 yuan annually－an amount that will continue for five years.

To provide workers to serve the new airport, more than 1,000 training programs had been offered by the district, and 10,000 residents have been trained so far.