Nyingchi Airport in China's Tibet Autonomous Region will begin service in early July, reports Air China Southwest Branch Company.

To the delight of travel lovers, a test flight to the airport will be possibly available on July 13 if "the weather permits", says a spokesman for the branch company.

Nyingchi Airport, built at a cost of 780 million yuan (about 96.18 million U.S. dollars), including investment from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), is the third civilian airport in Tibet. The other two are in Lhasa and Qamdo.

With a 3,000-meter-long runway, the new airport, situated inside Nyingchi Prefecture and 400 kilometers from Tibet's regional capital Lhasa, was completed and passed an assessment on April 28.

With a designed annual passenger flow of 120,000, Nyingchi Airport began construction in October 2004. The airport is located at 2,949 meters above sea level, lower than the other two civil airports.

"The lower altitude will make Nyingchi an ideal first stop for tourists to gradually adapt themselves to Tibet's highland climate and minimize the effect of thin oxygen," says a spokesman for the branch company.

The new airport, together with the 1,956-km-long Qinghai-Tibet Railway that is expected to start trial operation on July 1, will greatly promote local tourism development in Tibet, where currently traveling by air or highways are the only two alternatives to get around.

The company will use a Boeing-757 to fly to Nyingchi Airport and will open a regular air route from Chengdu to Nyingchi Airport shortly after the trial flight, the spokesman says.

Nyingchi Prefecture, covering 117,000 square kilometers and bordering India and Myanmar, is known for its humid and mild climate, beautiful landscape and rich natural resources.

About 120 kilometers from the Nyingchi Airport is Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon, the world's largest canyon that is often referred to as the last secret land.

Tourism is the main industry in Tibet. Official statistics show that in the first quarter this year, the number of tourists to Tibet increased 1.8 percent from the same period in 2005, with 3,274 overseas tourists providing an income of 1.81 million U.S. dollars.

Air China Southwest Branch Company is based in Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Tibet's neighbor to the east.

Air China Southwest Branch Company uses 18 of its 46 planes to fly altiplano routes, and now operates eight air routes to Tibet. Seven new planes will be delivered over in the forthcoming three months for altiplano flight service, according to the spokesman.

Its parent company, Air China, China's biggest air carrier and also the air company that doest the most of China's altiplano flight service, on Wednesday announces a plan to go public on the Chinese mainland later this year, with the purpose of raising 8 billion yuan (some 986 million US dollars) through issuing 2.7 billion Chinese currency-denominated shares.

Zheng Bao'an, secretary of the board of Air China, says his company has submitted an application to the China Securities Regulatory Commission for approval of the listing.