The world’s second highest airport will open in China in about six months at the lung-gasping altitude of 14,042 feet above sea level.

The airport is in Kangding, a Tibetan highland region of Sichuan province in southwest China, and will allow tourists to visit one of the most scenic regions of China without enduring a bone-jarring ride on mountain roads.

A state news agency today said flights will begin May 1 and cut travel time from the current five to seven hours by road to about 35 minutes in the air. Click here for a pretty photo of an airliner on the runway against a snow-dusted mountain backdrop.

The Kangding airport is only surpassed in altitude by the Chamdo Bamda airport in Tibet, which is at 14,219 feet. At both airports, jetliners need extra long runways to take off in the thin air.

The world’s third highest airport is El Alto, which is on the Altiplano above La Paz, Bolivia. The air is so thin there that I once got off the airplane and got directly into a taxi, forgetting to pick up my suitcase.