Ningbo Lishe International Airport serves Ningbo, a major city in the Yangtze River Delta region of China. Historically, Lishe was an auxiliary air force base of the Republic-era Chinese Nationalist Air Force. It served as the launching point for Martin B-10 bombers, commanded by Captain Xu Huansheng and Lieutenant Tong Yanbo, during their transoceanic raid on Nagasaki and other cities in the Empire of Japan on May 19–20, 1938. The airport opened for civil service on November 16, 1984, when a CAAC Antonov AN-24 aircraft landed at the military Ningbo Zhuangqiao Airport. Construction of Ningbo Lishe Airport was approved in 1985, and it officially opened for service on June 30, 1990, becoming the first civil-only airport in Zhejiang province. Despite its civil-only designation from 1990, its history includes military operations. The airport began international service in July 1992, with the first international route to Hong Kong later that year. Services to Macau with onward connections to Taipei and Kaohsiung started in November 1998, followed by international cargo flights by the end of 1998. On August 7, 2023, a Kalitta Air Boeing 747-481F suffered a runway excursion upon landing, leading to the temporary closure of the airport.