Ürümqi Airport was opened to foreign passengers in 1973, and has been used for emergency landings for flights between Europe and west Asia.
Facilities
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.
Runways
The first runway : in 1994 to accept the expansion, the flight zone level 4E, runway length 3600 meters, 45 meters wide, PCN value of 74, elevation 648 meters, with Class II precision approach.
The second runway : under construction, located to the north of current runway, flight zone level 4F, runway length 3600 meters, 60 meters wide.
The third runway : under construction, located to the north of current runway, flight zone level 4F, runway 3200 meters long, 60 meters wide.
Terminals
Terminal 1
The original terminal opened in 1974. It was closed between April 23, 2011 and August 30, 2013 for renovation. On April 1, 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 the 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.
Terminal 2
Construction on this terminal started in April 1994, was completed in December 2001 through the national acceptance, and on May 12, 2002 the terminal opened. On July 10, 2010 it closed for a renovation project, and resumed operations on April 16, 2011. It serves most domestic routes outside of Xinjiang province, except for China Southern, Xiamen and Chongqing airline 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. It increased Diwopu's ability to handle more than three times its current 5.13 million passengers annually to 16.35 million passengers. 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.
Terminal 4
An expansion project, which began in 2017, is underway and will see a new terminal building covering almost 400,000 sq meters as well as two additional runways north of the existing one.
Airlines and destinations
Passenger
Cargo
Other facilities
When the airline existed, China Xinjiang Airlines had its headquarters on the airport property.