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China’s top guns pilot first flights from Beijing Daxing airport
- Airlines give opening day honours to their brightest and best pilots and cabin crew
- Passengers treated to commemorative pin badges, stuffed toys and postcards as mementoes of the big day
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Zhuang Pinghuiin Beijing
The cream of China’s commercial aviation industry were aboard the first flights to take off from the 80 billion yuan (US$11 billion) Beijing Daxing International Airport on Wednesday, just hours after it was officially opened by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Seven flights took off from 4:23pm with just minutes between each departure from China’s largest and newest airport, all crewed by the airlines’ top guns on their flagship aircraft, according to CAAC News, a news portal run by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
China Southern Airlines flight 3001 – the first commercial flight off the tarmac – was piloted by Zhang Tao, who has been flying for 25 years and is a pilot trainer for the carrier’s A380 fleet.
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The cabin crew included four chief flying attendants, one with more than 24 years’ experience and 19,000 flying hours.
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China Eastern Airlines sent four pilots to fly an Airbus 350 from Daxing to Shanghai’s Pudong airport, led by Tang Hongxing, general manager of the Shanghai arm of the flying department. Tang’s record is 23,000 accident-free flying hours.
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