Air traffic brings Xinjiang nearer

Xinjiang, which was once thought to be a remote frontier area by the inland people, is now no longer far away with the opening of 96 air routes.

The distance between Xinjiang and principal inland cities is over 2,000 km on average, the longest being 4,200 km. Shortly after the founding of New China in 1949, Uncle Kuerban Turumu, a farmer of Hotan, Xinjiang, with the feeling of joy after liberation, insisted on coming to Beijing to see Chairman Mao Zedong by riding his beloved little donkey, he failed to get out of the Taklamakan Desert after more than half a month's journey. The photo showing the handshake between Uncle Kuerban and Chairman Mao Zedong to date still remains in the memories of the people of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang. Poor transport facilities, plus the long-distant space, have made people feel that Xinjiang was far away.

However, the rapid development of aviation industry in recent years has made people feel that Xinjiang has suddenly become "small". Uncle Kuerban did not know that now it takes only a little over three hours to go from Xinjiang to Beijing by air.

Xinjiang's air route history can be traced back to 1932, but the airline did not extend beyond the region until 1985. At present, Xinjiang's aviation industry has formed an eastward trunk line aviation network linking with the inland areas, and it has opened 81 airlines, including 26 international airlines and 55 domestic ones. Beginning from April this year, the flights of foreign airliners flying across the air of Xinjiang every week have reached 420 sorties, Xinjiang has become the main air passageway linking Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania.

The air transport passenger volume has risen steadily, and freight transport volume is also in the increase with each passing day. Boeing 777 passenger planes are added this year for flights from Urumqi to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities, the capacity of cargo hold of this type of plane is 30 tons, because of this, the freight transport capacity of the Xinjiang Company of Southern Airline has increased to 100 tons per day.

Not only foreign transport services have greatly changed, the traffic within the Xinjiang region has also been benefited greatly from the development of civil aviation industry.

On the vast land of 1.66 m. sq. km-Xinjiang, the distance between cities (towns) is prone to reach hundreds of km, furthermore, deserts, ice-capped mountains and Gobi deserts carve up the land into fragments. Take Qiemo County, which is farthest away from Urumqi, for example. In the 1950s, donkeys were the means of transportation, it took over 30 days to reach Kuerle City 800-plus km away; in the 1960s, it took about a week's time to reach the place by car. After an air route from Urumqi to Qiemo was opened in 1979, the journey now takes only several dozen minutes.

At present, air traffic in the Xinjiang region is very busy. The feeder aviation network within Xinjiang centered in Urumqi possesses 15 regional branch lines and 13 feeder airports, numerically ranking first in the country in terms of such airports, and distributing in the south and north of Mt. Tianshan. During the busy tourist season between May and October every year, the 'shuttle flight" and "touring-around hotline" opened in Xinjiang can take 16 round-trip flights at most per day.

In 2004, all Xinjiang airports could handle 5.16 million passengers/times and 52,000 tons of airmails, up 52.8 percent and 15.7 percent respectively compared to the same period of the previous year. It is estimated that the volume of passengers handled this year will exceed 6 million persons/times, an average annual increase of over 1 million by turnstile count.

There was still a sea of people in the waiting hall of Yining Airport at midnight. Manager of the airport told us that there were 17 flights to Urumqi every day, and yet they were often filled to capacity.

There is also a bustling scene in the border city of Altay: On the square of the airport at wee hour, cars receiving and sending visitors are shuttling here and there, and tourist guides waving small banners are greeting tourists in the cold wind.

By People's Daily Online