This Day, That Year

Item from June 16, 1992, in China Daily: The passenger building of the Gonggar Airport, which is one of two main parts of an expansion project for the Tibetan airport, is to take shape by the end of July. Gongkar was originally built in 1965 as an Air Force base ... The "roof of the world" is about to open the longest runway in the world ... The runway is 4,000 meters long and 60 meters wide and is designed to accommodate Boeing 747s ... The expanded airport is expected to give much-needed access for overseas and domestic tourists and business people, since Tibet has recently drawn up an ambitious blueprint for economic development.

There are five civilian airports in the Tibet autonomous region - Lhasa Gonggar Airport, Qamdo Bangda Airport, Nyingchi Mainling Airport, Ngari Gunsa Airport and Shigatse Heping Airport.

To meet the growing demand in tourism, three of the five airports will be expanded with a total investment reaching 800 million yuan ($129 million). Work began on the expansion of Mianling Airport in Nyingchi in March and, once built, the annual passenger capacity will reach 750,000 by 2020, up from the current 315,000. The photo above shows the first flight arriving at Mianling Airport in 2006.