Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport

Shanghai Hongqiao began in 1923 as a small airfield built in the city's western suburbs, far from downtown. Before the Second World War, it was developed into a full military base for the region. After 1949, it became Shanghai's civil airport, serving the growing city. From the 1960s onward, it handled the city's international flights as well, linking Shanghai to the wider world.

For decades, Hongqiao was China's second gateway after Beijing, at a time when foreign access to the country was tightly limited by policy. Everything changed in October 1999, when Pudong International Airport opened on reclaimed land east of the city. Pudong took over almost all of the airport's international flights. Hongqiao was left as the domestic airport, closer to downtown and more convenient, and it kept the business shuttle traffic.

Rather than fading away, Hongqiao was rebuilt. Terminal 2 opened in 2010, in time for the Shanghai World Expo, along with a second runway. The airport was then folded into the Hongqiao Transportation Hub, a complex joining the terminals with a high-speed rail station and several metro lines. That link made Hongqiao one of the world's largest multimodal interchanges, letting travelers step from a bullet train to a flight.

Hongqiao has two parallel runways, 18L/36R and 18R/36L, plus two terminals. The older Terminal 1 handles the limited international and regional flights, while the much larger Terminal 2 handles domestic traffic. International service is deliberately kept to a short list of nearby destinations.

Those routes are chiefly Tokyo Haneda, Seoul Gimpo, and Taipei Songshan, all city-center to city-center pairings. China Eastern dominates the schedule, and the Beijing shuttle is among the busiest air routes on earth. A high-speed rail station sits next to the terminal, so air and rail compete head to head on many domestic city pairs. Bullet trains to Beijing take about four and a half hours.