Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport is an international airport serving Ürümqi, the capital of Northwest China‘s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It is located in the Diwopu township of Xinshi district, 16 km northwest of downtown Ürümqi. As a hub for China Southern Airlines and as a focus city for Hainan Airlines, 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.

Facilities

The airport covers an area of 484 ha. Its newly built runway is 3600 m in length. The airport can allow the landing of large aircraft such as the Boeing 747. The 110000 m2 apron can accommodate over 30 aircraft.

Runways

Terminals

Terminal 1

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, Capital Aviation, Spring Airlines, Yunnan Xiangpeng Airlines, China United Airlines, Okay Airways and Western Airlines.

Terminal 2

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 flights.

Terminal 3

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

Terminal 4

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. Originally set to open in 2024, the date was pushed backed to July 2025 due to many aspects of the terminal being unfinished. After the opening of T4, the previous three terminals will be converted to cargo relay stations as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Cargo

Statistics

Other facilities

When the airline existed, China Xinjiang Airlines had its headquarters on the airport property.

Ground Transport

Line 1 of Ürümqi Metro opened on 25 October 2018 and links the airport to downtown Ürümqi.