According to the statistics from Tibet Autonomous Region Civil Aviation, Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China achieved a accumulated passenger throughput of 13.59 million air passengers during the 12th Five-Year Plan, up 123.1 percent from the previous period.

During the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan, Tibet Civil Aviation newly introduced 5 airlines and opened 42 new air routes. The number of cities linked to Tibet via air rose by 23. The number of flights in Tibet achieves 131,000 and total cargo throughput reaches 105,000 tons. In recent years, Tibet's civil aviation industry has been growing rapidly with a total investment of more than 3 billion yuan (457 million U.S. dollars), becoming an important driver for the regional economy. In 2015, Tibet Autonomous Region Civil Aviation opened 13 air routes, represented by Lhasa-Kangting-Chengdu, Nyingchi-Guangzhou, Nyingchi-Beijing and Ngari-Urumchi.

The number of cities linked to Tibet via air rose by seven. The number of flights in Tibet achieves 36,000, passenger throughput in Tibet gets to 3.63 million and total cargo throughput reaches 29,000 tons.

During the 13th Five-Year period, Tibet will develop air express routes between Lhasa and Chengdu, and will open more air routes to other domestic cities, especially counterpart assistant cities and provinces to Tibet, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, delta region of Yangtze River and Pearl River Delta Area. Besides, Tibet Autonomous Region Civil Aviation will further accelerate and perfect the distribution of airports, promote air-traffic control capabilities and expand airline network to form a distribution of transportation airport.