Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport (ZYTL/DLC) is the principal international gateway for Dalian in Liaoning Province, Northeast China, and the busiest airport in the region. It occupies a single long, ILS-equipped runway within Ganjingzi District, now hemmed in by the city it serves, and is due to be superseded by a new offshore airport at Jinzhouwan.
Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport, known by its ICAO code ZYTL and IATA code DLC, is a large international airport serving the city of Dalian in Liaoning Province, Northeast China. It sits in Ganjingzi District, roughly 10 km northwest of the city centre, and is the busiest airport in Northeast China. It functions as the hub for Dalian Airlines and a focus city for China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, handling a substantial mix of domestic and international traffic to Japan, South Korea and beyond. For the visiting simulator pilot it offers a single long paved runway with full ILS, busy airline traffic patterns and an interesting history stretching back to the Japanese occupation era.
The airport lies in Ganjingzi District, Dalian, about 10 km northwest of the city centre, on the Liaodong Peninsula. It is tagged as a military-civilian facility, reflecting its mixed heritage and continued shared use. As a major international hub, arriving and departing traffic is handled by Dalian Approach and Dalian Tower under a full air traffic control service; no additional airspace detail beyond the published frequencies is available from the sources reviewed.
The field has a single physical runway, 10/28, oriented east-west. Runway 28 is 10,482 feet long and Runway 10 is 10,161 feet long; both are hard-surfaced, lit, and served by ILS. Field elevation is 95 feet.
Dalian Approach operates on 123.85 MHz. The airport ATIS broadcasts on 126.65 MHz. Dalian Tower operates on 118.25 MHz. Both runway ends are equipped with ILS, providing instrument approach guidance for arriving traffic.
Zhoushuizi began as marshland used as a horse-racing course in the late Qing dynasty, known locally as "smelly waters" before being drained and renamed after the nearby village of Zhoujiatun. Following Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War and its occupation of the Liaodong Peninsula, the Japanese began converting the racecourse into an airport from 1924, opening it in 1927. It was soon linked into planned scheduled air routes, including a proposed Tokyo to Dalian service, and Manchukuo National Airways operated a few flights a day from the field. After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, military traffic from the Imperial Japanese Navy, largely using Douglas DC-3 aircraft, came to dominate over civil flying; at that time the airfield measured about 800 metres by 400 metres. Following Japan's surrender in 1945, the airfield was controlled by the Soviet Air Forces for a decade before being handed to the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force in May 1955. It was converted into a small civil airport in 1973, then with a 2,040-metre runway, 37 staff and fewer than 2,000 passengers a year. From the 1980s onward air traffic grew rapidly, prompting major expansions in 1984, 1992-93, 1999, 2005 and 2011-12, including a new 71,000 square-metre terminal completed in September 2011 as part of a 2.2 billion yuan third-phase project.
Zhoushuizi has grown into a major international airport handling nearly 20 million passengers a year, ranking as the busiest in Northeast China. It serves as the hub for Dalian Airlines and a focus city for China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, with international services to Japan and South Korea operated by carriers including Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines. The airport now covers 3,450,000 square metres, with 42 aircraft parking stands, but has reached its designed capacity as the surrounding city has grown up around it, leaving no room for further expansion. As a result, the new Dalian Jinzhouwan International Airport is under construction on an artificial island to eventually take over its role.