World's second-highest airport

The world’s second highest airport will open in China in about six months at the lung-gasping altitude of 14,042 feet above sea level.

The airport is in Kangding, a Tibetan highland region of Sichuan province in southwest China, and will allow tourists to visit one of the most scenic regions of China without enduring a bone-jarring ride on mountain roads.

A state news agency today said flights will begin May 1 and cut travel time from the current five to seven hours by road to about 35 minutes in the air. Click here for a pretty photo of an airliner on the runway against a snow-dusted mountain backdrop.

The Kangding airport is only surpassed in altitude by the Chamdo Bamda airport in Tibet, which is at 14,219 feet. At both airports, jetliners need extra long runways to take off in the thin air.

The world’s third highest airport is El Alto, which is on the Altiplano above La Paz, Bolivia. The air is so thin there that I once got off the airplane and got directly into a taxi, forgetting to pick up my suitcase.

Comments

[A B]

Don't you have to get special permission to visit Tibet as a journalist?

How high do you have to get to use one of these airports?

[Tim]

I haven't been to the airport but since it's in Sichuan province any journalist can go there. It's only the Tibetan Autonomous Region that has restrictions on journalists'visits.

On the other question, I'm not sure I follow you. High as a kite, I suppose.

[A B]

I was referring to the good old days when air travel in remote parts of China was done in ancient aircraft that served with distinction in the war against Japan and the civil war, and 'modern' aircraft consisted of a few randomly maintained Russian cast offs / hand me downs.

To fly as a passenger those days, you had to have your American life insurance policy and wills all prepared, and then, try to get as smashed or as high as possible before you board so you don't know what is going on while you are in the air and until well after your 'landing'.

These days, the planes are a lot better, but you have to fly above 25,000 ft or so to get above the haze over most cities to see the sun.

[Mark]

I just returned from Sichuan province. I took a five-hour car ride from Chengdu to Wolong to see the pandas in the mountains. For better or worse, this airport will make it easier for travellers to visit a very beautiful part of the world.