Originally Posted by
moondog
Off the top of my head, Lanzhou, Lhasa, and Jiuzhaigou all put it to shame (in terms of distance from town). And, I read that there is a new airport in Tibet that is 3 hours away from the city it serves.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if XIY was 15 minutes further out if it was even remotely comfortable.
IMO, you can't compare these situations with Xi'an! In mountainous terrain like a Lhasa, you put the airport where you can get the closest reasonably flat surface for the runway...and sometimes that's far away from where the city happens to be. Jiuzhaigou didn't even have a commercial airport until relatively recently--that facility is one of the many converted ex-military where location was a done deal. Considering that most visitors previously had no access options except a long 9-10 hour bus ride, the airport isn't that far.
I agree Xi'an, considering it is a major industrial and tourist city, should be ashamed of its crappy airport.
Originally Posted by
mnredfox
Only Hongqiao (SHA) and Kunming (KMG) come to mind as in the city airports...
Shenyang's airport is not in-the-city but is quite convenient to town as well--I can usually make it airport-center city in 20-25 minutes.