Ürümqi Tianshan International Airport is an

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...

serving

Ürümqi Ürümqi, , is the capital of the Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. With a census population of 4 million in 2020, Ürümqi is the second-largest city in China's northwestern interior after Xi'an, also the ...

, the capital of

Northwest China Northwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang. The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid continental climate. ...

‘s

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC: previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads ...

. It is located in the Diwopu township of Xinshi district, northwest of downtown Ürümqi. As a hub for

China Southern Airlines China Southern Airlines (branded as China Southern) is a major airline in China, headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong. It is one of the three major airlines in the country, along with Air China and China Eastern Airlines. Established on 1 ...

and as a

focus city An airline hub or hub airport is an airport used by one or more airlines to concentrate passenger traffic and flight operations. Hubs serve as transfer (or stop-over) points to help get passengers to their final destination. It is part of the ...

for

Hainan Airlines Hainan Airlines is an airline headquartered in Haikou, Hainan, China. It is the largest civilian-run enterprise, civilian-run and majority State ownership, state-owned air transport company, making it the fourth-largest airline in terms of flee ...

, the airport handled 23,027,788 passengers in 2018, making it the 19th busiest airport in China by passenger traffic.

History

Urumqi Airport was opened to foreign passengers in 1973, and has been used for emergency landings for flights between Europe and west Asia. It has been renamed from ''Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport'' to ''Ürümqi Tianshan International Airport'' in March 2025.

Facilities

The airport covers an area of . Its newly built runway is in length. The airport can allow the landing of large aircraft such as the

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. The apron can accommodate over 30 aircraft.

Runways

* The first runway (07/25) was built in 1994 to accept the expansion, the flight zone level 4E, runway length , wide, PCN value of 74, elevation 648 meters, with Class II precision approach. * The second runway (???): under construction, located to the north of the current runway, flight zone level 4F, runway length , wide. * The third runway (???): under construction, located to the north of the current runway, flight zone level 4F, runway long, wide.

Terminals

Terminal 1 (Closed)

The original terminal opened in 1974. It was closed between April 23, 2011, and August 30, 2013, for renovation. On April 1, 2014, operations were resumed. After the transformation of the T1 terminal has six security channels, 19 check-in counters, with the peak hourly 700 times the business capacity. This terminal is mainly for regional aviation around Xinjiang province and low-cost aviation use, including

Tianjin Airlines Tianjin Airlines ( — formerly Grand China Express Air) is a Chinese airline headquartered in Tianjin Binhai International Airport passenger terminal building, Dongli District, Tianjin, operating domestic scheduled passenger flights out of T ...

, Capital Aviation,

Spring Airlines Spring Airlines Co., Ltd. ( is a low-cost carrier headquartered in Changning, Shanghai, China. While the company adopted the English name "Spring Airlines", the Chinese name literally means "Spring-Autumn Airlines." Spring Airlines is the aviat ...

, Yunnan Xiangpeng Airlines,

China United Airlines China United Airlines (CUA) () is a low-cost airline and a subsidiary of China Eastern Airlines. It is headquartered at Beijing Daxing International Airport in Beijing. In 2019, the painted aircraft of China United Airlines won Top 1 at the Wo ...

Okay Airways Okay Airways () is an airline headquartered in Daxing District, Beijing, People's Republic of China. It operates passenger flight services and dedicated cargo services. Its main hubs are Tianjin Binhai International Airport and Xi'an Xianyang In ...

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish Low-cost carrier#Ultra low-cost carrier, ultra low-cost airline group headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. The parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, includes subsidiaries Ryanair , Malta Air, Buzz (Ryanair), Buzz ...

and

Western Airlines Western Airlines was a major airline in the United States based in California, operating in the Western United States including Alaska and Hawaii, and western Canada, as well as to New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Miami and to Mex ...

Terminal 2 (Closed)

Construction on this terminal started in April 1994, was completed in December 2001 through the national acceptance, and on May 12, 2002, the terminal opened. On July 10, 2010, it closed for a renovation project, and resumed operations on April 16, 2011. It serves most domestic routes outside of Xinjiang province, except for China Southern, Xiamen and

Chongqing Airlines Chongqing Airlines () is an airline based in Chongqing, China. It operates both domestic passenger services within mainland China and international passenger services to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Chongqing Airlines had 402 emp ...

flights.

Terminal 3 (Closed)

Construction of Terminal 3 to the west of the older terminal building began in April 2007 at a cost of 2.8 billion yuan (350 million U.S. dollars). It increased Diwopu's ability to handle more than three times its 2007 capacity of 5.13 million passengers annually to 16.35 million passengers annually. It can also handle 275,000 tons of cargo and 155,000 aircraft a year. Terminal 3 added 22 more

jet bridges A jet bridge is an enclosed connector which most commonly extends from an airport terminal gate to an airplane, and in some instances from a port to a boat or ship, allowing passengers to board and disembark without heading outside and being exp ...

and nearly 106,000 square meters of new terminal space. The terminal opened in 2009.

Terminal 4 (North Terminal)

An expansion project, which began in 2017, is underway and will see a new terminal building covering almost 400,000 sq meters consisting of 177 gates, as well as two additional runways north of the existing. On 17 April 2025, the North Terminal officially opened. After the opening of the new T4, the previous three terminals will be converted to cargo relay stations as part of the

Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or B&R), known in China as the One Belt One Road and sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the government of China in 2013 to invest in more t ...

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Cargo

Statistics

Other facilities

When the airline existed, China Xinjiang Airlines had its headquarters on the airport property."World Airline Directory." ''

Flight International ''Flight International'', formerly ''Flight'', is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", i ...

''. 1–7 April 1998
57
"Diwopu International Airport, Urumqi, 830016, Xinjiang, China."

Ground Transport

International Airport station on Line 1 of

Ürümqi Metro The Ürümqi Metro or Ürümqi Subway is a rapid transit system in operation in Ürümqi, capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China. It is the 35th rapid transit system to be put into operation on the Chinese mainland and the second in n ...

opened on 25 October 2018 and links the airport to downtown Ürümqi. In addition, the Ürümqi International Airport MRT, or Airport MRT, has opened to connect two stations of International Airport and International Airport North (North Terminal).

References

External links

Official website
* *
China: Terror plot targeted Olympics

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

9 March 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Urumqi Diwopu International Airport Airports in Xinjiang Airport Diwopu Buildings and structures in Ürümqi Airports established in 1973 1973 in Urumqi