Huatugou Airport guide

Haixi Mangnai Airport (ICAO ZLHX) is a small regional airport in the far northwest of Qinghai province. It sits near Huatugou town, in Mangnai, a county-level city of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The site is at 2,945 metres above sea level, in the Qaidam Basin close to the borders with Gansu and Xinjiang. It is also listed as Huatugou Airport.

Construction began on 30 December 2011 at an estimated cost of 700 million yuan, and the airport opened on 26 June 2015. The national planning approval set a design target of 90,000 passengers a year by 2020. In 2021 the airport handled 64,747 passengers, about 800 aircraft movements and 100.9 tonnes of cargo.

The single runway, 15/33, is 3,600 metres long, one of the longer runways for a regional airport, which suits the thin air at this altitude. The terminal building covers 3,000 square metres. China Eastern Airlines flies from here to Xining, Dunhuang and Delingha. Few other transport links reach this remote part of the prefecture, so the airport is the quickest way in and out for travellers heading to Mangnai.