Tashikuergan Hongqilafu Airport guide

Tashikuergan Hongqilafu Airport, also called Tashkurgan Khunjerab Airport, serves Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Kashgar Prefecture, Xinjiang. Its IATA code is HQL and its ICAO code is ZWTK. The airport sits on the western Pamir Plateau at an elevation of 3,200 metres, near the borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is Xinjiang's first high-plateau airport.

Construction began on 26 April 2020 and test flights started in May 2022. The first commercial flight landed on 23 December 2022. The project cost an estimated 1.63 billion yuan. The airport was designed to handle 160,000 passengers and 400 tonnes of cargo a year.

It has one runway, 15/33, which is 3,800 metres long. China Southern Airlines flies to Kashgar and Urumqi. Before the airport opened, the fastest trip from Urumqi to Tashkurgan took about eight hours overland. The flight takes a little over two hours. From 1 January to 20 December 2023 the airport handled 250 flights and 15,425 passengers.