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Lhasa Gonggar Airport

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Lhasa Gonggar Airport (IATA: LXA, ICAO: ZULS) is the airport serving Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. It is about 97 kilometres (60 mi) to Lhasa and about 62 kilometres (39 mi) southwest of the city in Gyazhugling, Gonggar County of Shannan.

Lhasa Gonggar Airport

拉萨贡嘎机场
ལྷ་ས་གོང་དཀར་གནམ་གྲུ་ཐང་།
Summary
Airport typePublic
Serves
LocationGonggar County, Lhasa, Tibet, China
Hub forTibet Airlines
Elevation AMSL3,570 m / 11,713 ft
Coordinates29°17′52″N 090°54′43″E / 29.29778°N 90.91194°E / 29.29778; 90.91194
Maps
CAAC airport chart
CAAC airport chart
LXA/ZULS is located in Tibet
LXA/ZULS
LXA/ZULS
Location in Tibet
LXA/ZULS is located in China
LXA/ZULS
LXA/ZULS
Location in China
Map
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
09L/27R 4,000 13,123 Asphalt
09R/27L 4,000 13,123 Concrete
A 4,000 13,123 Concrete
Statistics (2021)
Passengers4,779,386
Cargo (in tons)45,105.7
Aircraft movements44,449
Lhasa Gonggar Airport
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese拉萨贡嘎机场
Traditional Chinese拉薩貢嘎機場
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinLāsà Gònggá Jīchǎng
Wade–GilesLa1-sa4 Kung4-ka2 Chi1-ch'ang3
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingLaai1 saat3 gung3 gaa1 gei1 cheung4
Tibetan name
Tibetanལྷ་ས་གོང་དཀར་གནམ་གྲུ་ཐང་།
Transcriptions
Wylielha sa gong dkar gnam gru thang
THLlha sa gong kar nam gru tang
Tibetan PinyinLhasa Konggar

Situated at an elevation of 3,600 metres (11,800 ft), Lhasa Airport is one of the highest in the world. The airport was first built in 1965, a second runway was built in 1994, the second terminal was built in 2004,[1][2] and the third terminal was operational in 2021.[3]

History

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Building an airport in Tibet, which is termed in flying parlance as going over a "hump" in the Tibetan Plateau, has gone through a process of trial and error through many hazardous air routes and several fatal accidents during World War II.

Damxung Airport

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The first airport began construction in 1955 and was completed in May 1956, across river from Gongtang township in the southwest of Damxung County at a height of 4,200 metres (13,800 ft).[4]

Due to remoteness this airport was serviced by a 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) gravel runway but needed constant maintenance due to high winds blowing away the stones.[5]

Flights were sparse with a limited daily window in the morning, departure before afternoon to avoid high winds and eventually limited to flights to one per month or one month and a half.[6] There was no terminal building (added later with two aprons on the southwest end) and staff lived in a small building on site.

An Ilyushin Il-12 and a Convair CV-240-401 were the first aircraft that landed at Damxung airport from the north and south. They thus broke the jinx of the "forbidden air zone", and this was acclaimed a feat. It took almost nine more years before the first Beijing-Chengdu-Lhasa air route became operational in 1965.

Gonggar Airport

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In 1965 the Gonggar Airport was constructed to provide a more reliable location. Damxung Airport was decommissioned later (site partially converted into a race course with footprint of runway visible from satellite views) and the Lhasa Aviation Office was moved from Damxung to Gonggar Airport.

This established the Gonngar Airport as the second airport in Tibet. Over the years, with more expansion of the facilities, Gonggar became the domestic hub in the Tibetan Plateau connecting many other airports in Tibet.[7]

In 2021, Terminal 3 was put into service. It occupies a floor area of 88,000 m² and has 21 extra gates for boarding and deplaning, enabling the airport to serve 9 million passengers per year by 2025. The new terminal has a lotus-shaped roof and rich Tibetan style architecture, paying homage to Tibetan culture and ethnic identity.[8]

Geographic environment

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View from inside the terminal

Gonggar Airport is in Gyazuling township of the Gonggar County. It is built in the county where Yarlung Tsangpo River (the Brahmaputra River) is very wide on the right bank (southern bank) of the river providing facilities for the runways. It is for this reason that the airport was constructed at this location, though away from Lhasa where space was a limitation. The airport lies to the west of Rawa-me, which is the capital of the county, at the entry of the Namrab Valley, 87 kilometres (54 mi) from Tsetang.[9] [10] Within a radius of 30 kilometres (19 mi) the airport is surrounded by mountains with elevations ranging from 5,362–6,126 metres (17,592–20,098 ft).[11] Access to the airport from Lhasa has been further facilitated by constructing a road tunnel, which has reduced the distance and time taken to reach the airport from Lhasa by 40 minutes; time of travel from Lhasa is now about 40–60 minutes by shuttle bus services.[2] The tunnel and Lhasa Airport Expressway opened in July 2011.[12]

Airport description

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At an elevation of 3,500 metres (11,500 ft) above sea level, the airport is one of the highest in the world. Its runway, with airport rank 4E, at 4,000 metres (13,000 ft)[13] with a width of 45 metres (148 ft), is designed to handle wide-bodied aircraft in the thin Tibetan air. It has an area of 25,000 square metres (6.2 acres) with the passenger handling facilities of ticketing office, the baggage collection beltways and visitors gallery on the first floor of the new terminal building, and the departure lounge on the second floor with shopping malls, kiosks and restaurants. There are four aero bridges (one two-way bridge and three single-way bridges) to facilitate passengers to board and disembark from the aircraft.[2] The airport began operation in 1965 with flights to Beijing and Chengdu commencing that March. Recent additions included the expansion of the existing terminal in 2004 and as a result the airport has the facility to check in 1,300 passengers per hour during peak hours.[2][7][11][14]

The airport has parking facilities for five Airbus A340 or seven Boeing 757 aircraft.[2]

The airport is connected to the rest of China, which includes cities such as Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Xi'an, Xining, Kunming, Diqing and Chamdo Region. There is an international route connecting Kathmandu, Nepal and Lhasa.[2]

Flight handling

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All flights to and from the Lhasa Gonggar Airport are handled by seven Chinese-based airlines: Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Shenzhen, Hainan, Sichuan, and Tibet Airlines. During tourist season (roughly April to October), there can be as many as 40 domestic flights every week to and from Gonggar, carrying on average as many as 700,000 passengers every year. There is only one international route at present: a once or twice weekly (depending on the season) flight to and from Kathmandu. It is typically not possible to purchase air tickets directly from these carriers given the requirement of obtaining the necessary governmental travel permit, which is not the same as the visa to gain entry into the rest of mainland China. It was expected that this figure would reach 110,000 by the year 2010.[2]

Pilots landing at Lhasa Gonggar Airport must be specially trained in handling manoeuvres at landing at the high altitude of 3,700 metres (12,100 ft).[1] Incidentally, Nagqu Dagring Airport is expected to become the world's highest altitude airport by 2014 at 4,436 meters above sea level.[15]

Given the frequency of strong air currents picking up in the afternoon, most flights into the airport are scheduled in the morning.[1]

A night landing facility was created by fixing navigational lighting facilities on the runway at a cost of 99 million yuan (US$13.2 million) only in 2007. This adds to the handling capacity of the airport by about 40%.[16] The night landing facility was commissioned on 14 November 2007 with the landing of an Airbus A319 aircraft of Air China carrying 90 passengers. This facility was made operational initially once a week on Wednesdays from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan Province. With this facility the airport planned to handle 1.1 million passengers every year by 2010, as against 1.005 million in 2007.[17]

The airport was able to accommodate an Airbus A330 overnight for the first time on April 11, 2017, a problem due to the airport's high altitude.[18]

Infrastructure

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A new highway between Lhasa and the Gonggar Airport has been built by the Transportation Department of Tibet at a cost of RMB 1.5 billion yuan. It is a four-lane road of 37.68 kilometres (23.41 mi) length. This road is part of the National Highway 318; it starts from the Lhasa railway station, passes through the Caina Township in Qushui County, terminates between the north entrance of the Gala Mountain Tunnel and the south bridge head of Lhasa River Bridge, and en route goes over the first overpass of Lhasa at Liuwu Overpass.[19]

Airlines and destinations

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AirlinesDestinations
Air China Beijing–Capital, Chengdu–Shuangliu, Chengdu–Tianfu, Chongqing, Hongyuan, Kathmandu, Shigatse–Tingri[20]
Chengdu Airlines Chengdu–Shuangliu, Chengdu–Tianfu,[21] Chongqing,[22] Fuzhou, Wuhan, Zhengzhou
China Eastern Airlines Changsha, Chengdu–Tianfu,[23] Diqing, Guangzhou,[24] Hohhot,[25] Huai'an,[20] Kunming, Lianyungang,[20] Shanghai–Hongqiao,[26] Shanghai–Pudong, Xi'an
China Southern Airlines Chongqing, Guangzhou
Chongqing Airlines Chongqing[27]
Himalaya Airlines Kathmandu[28] Pokhara[29]
Lucky Air Chengdu–Tianfu, Kunming,[30] Mianyang,[31] Wuhan,[30] Zhengzhou[23]
Sichuan Airlines Chengdu–Shuangliu,[32] Chengdu–Tianfu, Chongqing, Hangzhou,[33] Kathmandu, Kunming, Lijiang, Mianyang, Ürümqi, Xi'an, Xining[23]
Tibet Airlines Beijing–Capital, Changsha, Chengdu–Shuangliu, Chongqing, Dazhou, Guangyuan,[34] Guiyang, Hangzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Lanzhou, Linyi,[23] Luzhou,[35] Mianyang, Nanchong, Nanjing, Ngari, Qamdo, Qingdao,[23] Sanming,[36] Shanghai–Hongqiao, Shenzhen,[35] Shijiazhuang,[37] Taiyuan,[37] Tianjin,[38] Wenzhou,[37] Wuhan,[23] Xi'an, Xining, Xuzhou,[39] Yibin,[40] Zhengzhou[41]
West Air Chongqing, Golmud,[42] Hefei,[43] Luzhou,[44] Wanzhou,[45] Zhengzhou
XiamenAir Fuzhou, Xiamen

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Buckley, Michael (2006). Tibet. Bradt Travel Guides. pp. 58, 161. ISBN 1-84162-164-1. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "China Travel Guide: Lhasa Gonggar Airport". Travel China Guide.com. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  3. ^ "拉萨贡嘎国际机场T3航站楼非民航专业工程竣工_图片新闻_中国政府网". www.gov.cn. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  4. ^ Li, Q. (2017). The Evolution and Preservation of the Old City of Lhasa. Springer Nature Singapore. p. 186. ISBN 978-981-10-6735-8. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  5. ^ "Damxung Airport, Tibet's first civil airport_Projects_TIBET". M.tibet.cn. 3 December 2015. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  6. ^ "Damxung Airport, Tibet's First Civil Airport-Vtibet". Vtibet.com. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Airports in Tibet". Tibet Geographic. Archived from the original on 1 March 2012. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
  8. ^ "Lhasa Gonggar Airport Terminal 3". ARUP. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  9. ^ Dorje, Gurme (1999). Tibet handbook. Footprint Travel Guides. pp. 160–163. ISBN 1-900949-33-4. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  10. ^ 安才旦 (2003). "Gonggar Airport of Lhasa". Tibet China: travel guide. China Intercontinental Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 7-5085-0374-0. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
  11. ^ a b "Visit our China". Visitourchina.com. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
  12. ^ Shi, Jierui (19 July 2011). "First expressway in Tibet halves time from downtown Lhasa to airport". Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  13. ^ "Lhasa Gonggar Airport (BPX/ZUBD". A.Z. World Airports. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
  14. ^ Beijing review, Volume48. Beijing Review. 2005. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
  15. ^ (in English) "World's highest-altitude airport planned on Tibet". Xinhua News Agency. 12 January 2010. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2010.
  16. ^ "Lhasa airport eligible for night flight service". People Daily. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
  17. ^ "Lhasa airport begins night service". Tibetan Review. Retrieved 12 September 2010.
  18. ^ Xinhua News Agency (12 April 2017). "Tibet's airport able to accommodate large planes overnight". China Daily. Archived from the original on 13 April 2017. Konggar Airport in Tibet, one of the highest-altitude airports in China, was able to accommodate a Tibet Airlines wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft overnight for the first time, the airline announced Wednesday. The 3,600-meter-high airport in Lhasa was able to accommodate the plane after the airline's technicians solved the problem of re-starting the aircraft's engine in a low air pressure environment after an overnight stay. A new oxygen diffusion device has been designed to increase air supply during the engine ignition process, the airline said.
  19. ^ "New highway linking Lhasa to Gonggar Airport to be built". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.
  20. ^ a b c "进出藏注意了！拉萨贡嘎机场发布最新提醒". Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  21. ^ "冬春航季今启航 | 成都航空32条新航线陆续首航，150元新疆区域"无限飞"！". Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  22. ^ "新航季 | 成都航空夏秋航季全新开启". Retrieved 18 June 2024.
  23. ^ a b c d e f "西藏区内机场2023年冬春航季航班换季来啦！". Retrieved 1 February 2024.
  24. ^ "新航季、新开始迪庆香格里拉机场2023冬春航季计划时刻表新鲜出炉". Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  25. ^ 呼和浩特經西安至拉薩航線4月15日正式通航 (in Traditional Chinese). Meiri Toutiao.
  26. ^ "新航季|2024年冬航季东上航陕西始发航班时刻表". Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  27. ^ "乘风出发·航班上新 | 重庆航空将全面执行夏航季航班计划". Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  28. ^ "Himalaya Airlines Adds Kathmandu – Lhasa Service From Jan 2024". Aeroroutes. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  29. ^ "https://www.tourismmail.com/news/detail/105477/". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  30. ^ a b "新航季新出发 | 夏航季温暖来临 百条航线可选 去浪趁现在". Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  31. ^ "13日起，绵阳乘机有变化！时刻表→". Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  32. ^ "2023年新航季川航最新航线出炉，附国际/地区航线新消息". Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  33. ^ "新航季 | 心向阳•梦启航 川航浙江地区新航季来袭". Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  34. ^ "Air China Group/Affiliated Carriers NW22 Domestic Network Additions". Aeroroutes. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  35. ^ a b "出行更加方便快捷！泸州机场2022年冬航季航班计划出炉". Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  36. ^ "三明机场将开通拉萨航线". Retrieved 5 October 2024.
  37. ^ a b c "西藏航空2024年夏航季航线计划新鲜出炉！". Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  38. ^ "南充高坪机场新开北海、海口航线！最新夏航季航班计划时刻表出炉——". Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  39. ^ "徐州机场2023年冬航季航班时刻表". Retrieved 12 November 2023.
  40. ^ 西藏航空正式开通拉萨—宜宾—杭州航线 (in Chinese (China)). Carnoc. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  41. ^ "青海民航进入冬航季". Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  42. ^ 3月31日起西部航空将新开拉萨=格尔木=郑州航线 (in Chinese (China)). Carnoc. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  43. ^ 合肥机场2019夏航季航班换季亮点多 (in Chinese (China)). Xinhua Anhui. 28 March 2019. Archived from the original on 8 May 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  44. ^ "Hainan Airlines / HNA Group Carriers NW22 Network Additions". Aeroroutes. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
  45. ^ "换季时间到啦！快来拿走这份超全冬航季航班计划表". Retrieved 5 December 2023.
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