Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Taiyuan Wusu International Airport (ICAO: ZBYN, IATA: TYN) is the principal airport serving Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province in northern China, lying some 15 kilometres southeast of the city centre. It is the largest airport in Shanxi and a focus city for China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, with a single very long runway pair equipped for instrument approaches, making it a notable diversionary field as well as a busy regional hub for the simulator pilot to explore.
Taiyuan Wusu International Airport is the main gateway for Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, and is the largest airport in the province. It sits roughly 15 kilometres southeast of downtown Taiyuan, at the junction of the city's Xiaodian district and Yuci district in neighbouring Jinzhong. The field is a focus city for both China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines and serves as an operating base for West Air, giving it a mixed traffic pattern of domestic and international jet movements that a visiting simulator pilot will need to integrate with.
The airport lies at the boundary of Xiaodian District in Taiyuan and Yuci District of Jinzhong City, about 15 kilometres southeast of Taiyuan's city centre. Its long single runway pair and status as a major regional and international hub mean it sits within controlled airspace typical of a large Chinese civil airport, and it has historically served as a diversionary field for Beijing Capital International Airport, including during the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Wusu has a single physical runway, 13/31, some 11,778 to 11,779 feet long with a hard surface. Both directions are lit and equipped with an instrument landing system, making the runway usable for precision approaches in poor weather.
Air traffic control is provided as TAIYUAN TWR on 118.25 MHz. The runway is ILS-equipped on both 13 and 31, supporting instrument approaches to the field.
The airfield's origins date to February 1939, when the Japanese military proposed a civil airport between Taiyuan and Yuci to help secure the province and promote industrial development; construction began in June 1939 near Wusu Village, from which the airport takes its name, and it opened to traffic in November 1939 as a joint military-civilian field. In March 1940 the site was extended northward and a 1,000-metre by 80-metre north-south runway was built with an earthen, later concrete, taxiway. On 11 August 1944 twenty Allied bombers raided the airfield along with Japanese barracks and an arsenal, destroying thirteen aircraft on the ground. Operations were suspended in 1945 and the airfield was repaired and reopened in November 1946, before being captured by the People's Liberation Army during the Liberation of Taiyuan in 1948, after which it was converted to military use. Civil services for Taiyuan shifted to the nearby Qinxian Airport from December 1951. Wusu was approved for civil allocation in 1959 but this was shelved for economic reasons, and ownership only passed to the Civil Aviation Administration of China in November 1969. Upgrading work began in April 1970 and the airport officially reopened on 1 July 1971, taking over operations from Qinxian. The terminal was expanded in 1984, and the field was cleared for foreign traffic on 30 March 1993. Terminal 1 began trial operations on 21 February 1995, and a new runway, 13/31, entered trial service on 21 January 1996, opening fully with Terminal 1 on 25 December 1996, when the airfield's classification was raised from 4C to 4D and the old runway and terminal were decommissioned. International status was formally designated on 12 January 2004, and the airport was renamed Taiyuan Wusu International Airport on 13 November 2007 following a major expansion completed in 2007. Terminal 2 opened on 1 September 2008, with Terminal 1 closing shortly after for renovation. The airfield's classification was upgraded again, from 4D to 4E, in January 2012, and Terminal 1 reopened on 1 January 2014.
Taiyuan Wusu today operates as a 4E-classification international airport and is a focus city for China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, as well as an operating base for West Air. Since March 2020 it has also received international flights diverted from Beijing and Shanghai during periods of reduced capacity at those hubs, continuing its longstanding role as a diversionary airport, a function it notably performed for Beijing Capital International Airport during the 2008 Summer Olympics.