Development of transportation in Tibet over past 5 decades

Photo taken on July 26, 2011 shows the inaugural flight ceremony of Tibet Airlines, the first airline company based in Tibet, at Lhasa Gonggar Airport, Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region. People witnessed amazing progress of the transportation in Tibet over the past five decades. A total of 75,000 kilometers road have made the transportation in Tibet much easier than 50 years ago. The Qinghai-Tibet railway, running from Northwest China's Qinghai province to Lhasa, was opened in 2006. Since then, the number of visitors to Tibet has increased enormously. Above the railways and highways, the air transportation in Tibet also embraced a huge leap-forward. In the half-century development, over 24.71 million passenger trips were made and the total volume of goods reached nearly 329,900 tons.[Photo/Xinhua]