Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport

Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport is the long-established primary gateway for Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province and the largest city in western China. Located 10 mi (16 km) southwest of downtown Chengdu at 1,625 ft (495 m) elevation on the Chengdu Plain, CTU handles 161 routes across 85 destinations through 15 airlines and has historically been one of the four busiest airports in mainland China by passenger volume, routinely breaking into the global top 30 during the 2010s. Following the 2021 opening of the second Chengdu airport at Tianfu International (TFU), Shuangliu has been reorganized into a predominantly domestic and Greater China-focused facility while most international widebody operations have migrated east to the new airport. Air China, China Eastern, and Sichuan Airlines (whose main hub is Chengdu) operate the bulk of movements, with Chengdu Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Hainan, Xiamen, Juneyao, Spring, Lucky Air, and all major Chinese carriers maintaining significant presences. International service remaining at CTU emphasizes East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Indian Subcontinent destinations — Hong Kong, Taipei, Macau, Seoul–Incheon, Tokyo, Osaka, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, Kathmandu, and Lhasa — with the Lhasa (LXA) corridor particularly significant: Chengdu is the principal air gateway to the Tibetan Plateau, and CTU operates some of the world's highest-elevation scheduled widebody missions over the Himalayas, including demanding high-altitude approaches into Lhasa Gonggar and Yushu. Two parallel runways — 02L/20R (asphalt) and 02R/20L (concrete) — both measuring 11,811 ft (3,600 m), enable independent simultaneous operations and support full widebody traffic. The airport operates two connected terminals (T1 and T2) with Metro Line 10 integrated beneath T2 plus the Shuangliu Airport high-speed railway station linking to regional destinations including Leshan (Giant Buddha), Emeishan, and the broader Sichuan rail network. Shuangliu's capacity has been functionally capped around 60M after the shift of international long-haul flights to the larger Tianfu facility to the east — a two-airport model that mirrors Shanghai's PVG/SHA and Beijing's PEK/PKX arrangements.