Guangyuan Panlong Airport is located in Panlong town in Lizhou district, some 13.4 kilometers southwest of the downtown area.

Approved by the State Council and the Central Military Commission in June 1993, construction of the airport began in 1994 with a total investment of 460 million yuan ($71.8 million) and the facility was put into use in September 2000.

As a domestic branch airport with a flight zone of 4C, the airport has a 2,500-meter-long, 45-meter-wide runway, which can meet the requirements of the B737, the A320 and other aircraft types. 

At present, it has seven routes to cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Kunming, and Jinan, using various aircraft including Boeing B737-700s, Airbus A319s, and A320s. Its airlines include Air China and China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Sichuan Airlines. 

In 2015, the airport's annual passenger throughput exceeded 200,000 passengers, setting a new milestone in the airport's history. 

In 2019, 4,830 inbound and outbound flights were made, a year-on-year increase of 83.51 percent. Passenger throughput was 491,200, a year-on-year increase of 92.3 percent, and cargo and mail throughput was 379.2 tons, a year-on-year increase of 8.3 percent.

The airport continues to boost its development and introduce various aviation services such as the Longhao aviation school and on-site airline trainings.  

The airport is also helping Guangyuan to become a transport hub in the Sichuan-Shanxi-Gansu junction and to strengthen its role as a bridgehead from north to east. It has four major themes: "safety, good service, construction, and development" and strives to play a positive role in the local economic development of Guangyuan.

Guangyuan Panlong Airport [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]