About 400,000 people live in Nagqu, the majority of them ethnic Tibetans. “With the airport, Nagqu, which is also on the Qinghai-Tibet railway line, is expected to become the centre of an economic hub in the plateau region,†Xinhua quoted a Chinese government official as saying.
As well as currently holding the current airport height record Qamdo Bamda also holds the distinction of possessing the world’s longest runway used by commercial passenger aircraft. Its extreme 5.5 kilometre length is dictated by the reduction in air density experienced at this kind of height, which results in aircraft needing to have more power applied during take-offs and landings which translates to a need formore runway in the process.
