Qingdao Liuting International Airport was the main airport that served the city of

Qingdao Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...

Shandong Province Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizatio ...

, China. It was about from the city center and served as a hub for

Shandong Airlines Shandong Airlines Co,.Ltd. (; nicknamed SDA or ) is an airline based in the Shandong Airlines Center () in Jinan, Shandong. The Chinese carrier operates a sizable domestic network from Jinan, Qingdao and Yantai to major cities across China, toget ...

Beijing Capital Airlines Beijing Capital Airlines (), commonly known as Capital Airlines, is a Chinese low-cost airline based in Beijing Daxing International Airport. It is a subsidiary of Hainan Airlines. History The company was established in 1995 as Deer Jet Airl ...

and

Qingdao Airlines Qingdao Airlines is a startup Chinese airline that commenced operations on 26 April 2014. The carrier is based at Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport. History An application for the establishment of an airline based in the Shandong province ...

as well as a focus city for

China Eastern Airlines China Eastern Airlines Corporation Limited (), also known as China Eastern, is an airline headquartered in the China Eastern Airlines Building, on the grounds of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in Changning District, Shanghai. It is ...

. A replacement airport,

Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport is an airport serving the city of Qingdao in Shandong province, China. It received approval in December 2013, and replaced Qingdao Liuting International Airport as the city's main airport. It is located i ...

, opened on 12 August 2021.

History

From 2004 to 2006, the airport underwent an expansion of its terminal as well as adding more parking spaces which was part of its initial 2010 goal to expand Liuting Airport to handle 5.2 million passengers annually or 2400 passengers and almost 120,000 tons of cargo hourly. The runway was also extended to its current length. Its IATA code is used for its former romanized name Tsingtao. In 2018, Qingdao Liuting was the 15th busiest airport in China with 24.53 million passengers. Due to its lack of room to expand as it is being surrounded by the city, in December 2013, the Chinese government approved the construction of

. All flights were transferred to Jiaodong Airport when it opened on August 12, 2021. Qingdao did not have a non-stop intercontinental air link until 29 March 2016, when

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

's existing service to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, Germany via

Shenyang Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...

was upgraded to a non-stop flight to Frankfurt. Later in the year,

introduced service to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, Canada in early 2017.

Statistics

Access

The airport is about north of the city, and connected by taxis, three airport shuttle bus lines (701路, 702路, 703路), two tourism bus lines ( Huangdao Special Line, Jiaonan Special Line), and

intercity buses InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at ma ...

to neighboring cities.

Metro

Liuting station ( Qingdao Metro Line 1), opened in December 2020.

References

External links