Lhasa Gonggar Airport is the most widely used airport in Tibet. It is about 62 km (39 miles) from Lhasa downtown. It takes about 1.5-2 hours to get airport from downtown. Gonggar Airport serves both international and domestic airlines.
Lhasa airport |
Lhasa airport |
The only international airline is between Lhasa and Kathmandu (Capital city of Nepal). Domestic flights are from Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xian, Kunming, Shangri-la, and Guangzhou. Among these routes, flights between Chengdu and Lhasa are most popular and from Chengdu. There is more than 1 flight to Lhasa daily. We recommend visitor to stay one night in Chengdu before fly to Lhasa. Giant Panda is most famous in Chengdu, so before going to Lhasa paying a visit the lovely Giant Pandas will be a good choice. Here is a map of flights from and to Lhasa, Tibet
map of tibet flight routes
Other airports are as not important as Lhasa airport. Nyingchi airport is more convenient for tourist to Tibet, as its altitude is less than 3,000 meters, allowing visitors to acclimatize themselves gradually to higher altitudes. Ngari Gunsa Airport in northwest Tibet, farthest from Lhasa among all Tibetan prefectures, Ngari is difficult for tourists to get to due to long distance and poor road condition. Before the airport, Ngari was linked to Lhasa only by road and it took 3 days to cover the 1,600-km route. Shigatse Peace Airport, built near the world's tallest peak Mount Everest in Shigatse Tibet, opens from October 30, 2010, Since the operation of Shigatse airport, it made the trip from Lhasa to Shigatse much near. Normally it takes 3-4 hours to get Shigatse from Lhasa by rode, now it takes only 30 minutes by plane.
