ÃÂrümqi Tianshan International Airport is an international airport serving ÃÂrümqi, the capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It is located in the Diwopu township of Xinshi district, northwest of downtown ÃÂrümqi. As a hub for China Southern Airlines and as a focus city for Hainan Airlines, the airport handled 29,179,737passengers in 2025, making it the 18th busiest airport in China by passenger traffic.
ÃÂrümqi Airport was opened to foreign passengers in 1973, and has been used for emergency landings for flights between Europe and west Asia. It was renamed from ÃÂrümqi Diwopu International Airport to ÃÂrümqi Tianshan International Airport in March 2025.
The airport covers an area of . Its newly built runway is in length. The airport can allow the landing of large aircraft such as the Boeing 747. The apron can accommodate over 30 aircraft.
The original terminal opened in 1974. It was closed between 23 April 2011 and 30 August 2013 for renovation. On 1 April 2014, operations were resumed. After the transformation of the T1 terminal has six security channels, 19 check-in counters, with the peak hourly 700 times the business capacity. This terminal is mainly for regional aviation around Xinjiang province and low-cost aviation use, including Tianjin Airlines, Capital Aviation, Spring Airlines, Yunnan Xiangpeng Airlines, China United Airlines, Okay Airways, and Western Airlines.
Construction on this terminal started in April 1994, was completed in December 2001 through the national acceptance, and on 12 May 2002, the terminal opened. On 10 July 2010, it closed for a renovation project, and resumed operations on 16 April 2011. It serves most domestic routes outside of Xinjiang province, except for China Southern, Xiamen and Chongqing Airlines flights.
Construction of Terminal 3 to the west of the older terminal building began in April 2007 at a cost of 2.8 billion yuan (350 million U.S. dollars). It increased Diwopu's ability to handle more than three times its 2007 capacity of 5.13 million passengers annually to 16.35 million passengers annually. It can also handle 275,000 tons of cargo and 155,000 aircraft a year. Terminal 3 added 22 more jet bridges and nearly 106,000 square meters of new terminal space. The terminal opened in 2009.
An expansion project, which began in 2017, is underway and will see a new terminal building covering almost 400,000 sq meters consisting of 177 gates, as well as two additional runways north of the existing. On 17 April 2025, the North Terminal officially opened. After the opening of the new T4, the previous three terminals will be converted to cargo relay stations as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
When the airline existed, China Xinjiang Airlines had its headquarters on the airport property.
International Airport station on Line 1 of ÃÂrümqi Metro opened on 25 October 2018 and links the airport to downtown ÃÂrümqi. In addition, the ÃÂrümqi International Airport MRT, or Airport MRT, has opened to connect two stations of International Airport and International Airport North (North Terminal).