Qingdao Liuting International Airport

For the current airport, see Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport.

Qingdao Liuting International Airport (IATA: TAO, ICAO: ZSQD) was an airport that served the city of Qingdao in East China's Shandong province. It is located in Liuting Street, Chengyang District. Built in 1944, it is about 23 kilometres (14 mi) away from the center of Qingdao, and was a Class 4E civil international airport, one of the twelve major trunk airports in China.

Qingdao Liuting International Airport 青岛流亭国际机场
IATA: TAO ICAO: ZSQD
Summary
Airport type	Defunct
Operator	Qingdao International Airport Group Co., Ltd.
Serves	Qingdao
Location	Liuting Street, Chengyang, Qingdao, Shandong, China
Opened	5 August 1982 (1982-08-05) (commercial)
Closed	12 August 2021 (2021-08-12)
Built	1944 (1944)
Elevation AMSL	10 m / 33 ft
Coordinates	36°15′58″N 120°22′28″E
Map
TAO Show map of Qingdao TAO Show map of Shandong TAO Show map of China
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 17/35 3,400 11,155 Concrete (Closed)
Statistics (2021)
Passengers 16,031,973 Cargo 237,603 Ton Num. of Flights 139,677
Source: List of the busiest airports in China

Qingdao Liuting International Airport
Simplified Chinese	青岛流亭国际机场
Traditional Chinese	青島流亭國際機場
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Qīngdǎo Liútíng Guójì Jīchǎng Wade–Giles Ch'ing1tao3 Liu2t'ing2 Kuo2chi4 Chi1ch'ang3

Liuting served as a hub for Shandong Airlines, Beijing Capital Airlines and Qingdao Airlines as well as a focus city for China Eastern Airlines. It was the city's main airport until it was replaced by the newly built Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport on 12 August 2021.^[1]

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.^{[citation needed]} Its IATA code is used for its former romanized name Tsingtao.^{[citation needed]}

In 2018, Qingdao Liuting was the 15th busiest airport in China with 24.53 million passengers.^[2] 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 Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport. All flights were transferred to Jiaodong Airport when it opened on 12 August 2021.

Qingdao did not have a non-stop intercontinental air link until 29 March 2016, when Lufthansa's existing service to Frankfurt, Germany via Shenyang was upgraded to a non-stop flight to Frankfurt.^[3] Later in the year, Beijing Capital Airlines introduced service to Melbourne, Australia^[4] and Vancouver, Canada in early 2017.^[5]

A Qingdao Airlines Airbus A320-200 taxiing at Liuting Airport in 2014.

Statistics

Annual passenger traffic at TAO airport. See Wikidata query.

See also

• China portal
• Aviation portal

• List of airports in China
• China's busiest airports by passenger traffic