Qamdo Bamda Airport in Tibet, China (Image: worldkings.org)
An airport that is home to the world’s longest runway was recently named as one of the most inconvenient on the planet. Qamdo Bamda Airport in Tibet, China, is also often regarded as the world’s loneliest because of just how isolated it is — but its record-breaking runway stretches more than three miles, or 5,500 metres.
However, despite being incredible to see, it is not always the most popular, likely because it is some 84 miles away from the nearest town, meaning people still have a timely journey ahead of them after landing. This perhaps explains why the Telegraph named it in their top 10 list of most inconvenient airports earlier this year.
It is the longest runway in the world (Image: Google Earth)
They pointed to the fact that it sits just outside Bamda — a small village that is 4,300 metres above sea level. The report also referenced that Tibet’s “notoriously mountainous terrain” makes constructing an airport any closer to Qamdo unachievable.
And for those wanting to go to Qamdo from the airport, which is the third-largest city in Tibet and the most likely destination for passengers, they would need to travel 78 miles by car, which may take two-and-a-half hours.
However, a shuttle bus does run regularly, so passengers are not completely stranded after touching down on the world’s longest runway.
Being incredibly unique, an aviation group known as Cockpit King released a video about the airport last year, where they asked: “Is Qamdo’s runway an engineering marvel or just proof that humans push aviation to places it was never meant to go?”
It stretches an impressive 5,500 metres (Image: Google Earth)
They pointed out that the runway is double that of most runways in the world — and that you could almost fit two Heathrow runways there back to back.
However, with Qamdo being thousands of feet above sea level, a narrator explained: “At that altitude the air is thin, engines make less thrust, wings make less lift and aircraft need far more distance to claw into the sky.”
They added: “This is one of the world’s most demanding operating environments with rapid weather shifts, mountainous terrain, and razor-thin margins for error. The runway is long because it has to be.”
The airport opened in 1995 and it instantly became the world’s highest airport, sitting at a colossal 4,334m above sea level.
This was later surpassed by another airport in China in September 2013 — the Daocheng Yading Airport which has a height of 4,411 metres.
As previously mentioned, the longer runway is crucial for the airport that is based in the Hengduan Mountains, and flights can be impacted by wind speeds of over 30 metres per second and temperatures as low as -20C at certain times in the year.
The airport had a revamp in 2007, which cost an estimated 270 million Yuan (approx £29m) when a new terminal was built and the runway was reconstructed.
However, the whole site was shut down six years later, before a new 5,500 metre runway was made, with the former runway being closed.
Passengers are not able to fly overseas from the airport and only domestic routes are available — including to places like Chengdu, Lhasa, Chongqing, Tianjin, and Anhui Fuyang.
The nearest town to the extremely remote airport is Qamdo Town and an airport shuttle bus runs to it from there every hour and it costs 60 yuan (£6.28).
While many Brits may not ever go to the airport, it is a regular feature in the Guinness World Records for having the longest runway.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
