Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Yanji Chaoyangchuan Airport serves the city of Yanji in Jilin province, Northeast China, close to the borders with North Korea and Russia. It operates as a joint military-civilian aerodrome with a single long instrument runway, and is of interest to the simulator pilot both for its ILS approach and for its unusual history as a former air force base opened to civil traffic in the 1980s.
Yanji Chaoyangchuan Airport is a joint military-civilian aerodrome serving Yanji in Jilin province, Northeast China, near the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. It began life as a military airfield and only later became a civil gateway for the region, a history that still shapes its operation today. For the sim pilot it offers a single, generously long hard-surfaced runway equipped with ILS, set in the hilly terrain of China's far northeast close to the borders with North Korea and Russia.
The airport lies in Chaoyangchuan Town, in the Longjing area of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin province, a short distance from the city of Yanji itself. As a joint-use military-civilian field it sits within controlled airspace typical of Chinese regional airports, and pilots should expect ATC-managed traffic given its status as a scheduled airline destination.
The airport has a single physical runway, 09/27, measuring 8,489 feet in length with a hard surface. Both directions are lit and served by ILS, making it usable for instrument approaches in poor visibility.
The airport is served by a tower frequency of 130 MHz. The runway is equipped with an instrument landing system, supporting precision approaches to either end of runway 09/27.
The airfield was built in 1952 during the Korean War as a small military airport under the Air Force. In the 1980s, as Yanbian Prefecture opened up, the local government sought to bring civil aviation to the site, and on 12 April 1985 the State Council and Central Military Commission approved converting Chaoyangchuan Airport into a joint military-civilian facility. An agreement signed on 2 June 1985 saw the Air Force allow civil aviation free use of the runway while the Civil Aviation Administration of China supplied navigation equipment and technical staff; total construction cost was just over 7 million RMB. On 1 July 1985 the Civil Aviation Yanji Station was established, and on 29 August 1985 an An-24 made the airport's maiden civil flight on the Yanji-Shenyang route, ending Yanbian's lack of civil air links. A terminal building was completed in September 1988. In early 1991 the airport was expanded to meet growing demand, with a major renovation project from 1993: the runway was extended from 2,000 to 2,600 metres in a first phase completed and accepted in November 1993, while a new terminal building, part of the second phase, was completed in April 1997 and opened in June 1997, raising the number of routes from three to nine and airlines from one to nine. In August 2000 the airport's first international charter service, to Seoul, took off. In June 2003 the State Council approved opening Yanji Airport, and by 2005 it had passed final inspection to become Jilin province's second international airport after Changchun. Preparations for relocating the airport began in 2008. In 2011 passenger throughput exceeded one million, making it the largest feeder airport in Northeast China. Regular international services to Osaka, Japan began on 4 July 2015, and to Taipei on 3 November 2016; a visa-on-arrival service also commenced in April 2015. In 2017 the airport was formally renamed Yanji Chaoyangchuan International Airport.
Yanji Chaoyangchuan Airport continues to operate as a joint military-civilian aerodrome and remains Jilin province's second international airport. It is due to be renamed Yanji Jindalai International Airport in 2029 following a planned relocation of the facility.