DALLAS – China Southern Airlines (CZ) has launched a new daily flight between Beijing and London, seizing the rising tide of post-pandemic international travel.

The state-owned airline will operate the service to London Heathrow Airport (LHR) from the Chinese capital's Daxing Airport (PKX), making it the first new daily service between the two countries since the Covid outbreak.

According to the airline, passengers will fly on an Airbus A350 aircraft, which is expected to transport more than 600 passengers per day between the two cities.

International Travel on the Rise

According to Xiao Yong, deputy director general of China Southern Airlines., China's aviation market has seen a 120% increase in passenger traffic since January of this year, and global aviation transport increased by 80% last month. As a result, CZ is acting optimistic about the recovery of the Chinese aviation market.

Routes began to be expanded on the heels of the lifting of travel restrictions in the Asian country, including quarantine-free arrivals in China. CZ is one of the country's largest airlines in terms of fleet size, and it plans to make PKX a hub with additional flights to Europe and the United States.

The new US$63bn airport, with four runways, aims to serve 70 million passengers per year by 2025. According to the Xinhua news agency, one flight will depart from Heathrow every day at 10.30 p.m. local time, and travelers will be able to connect to domestic and international flights at PKX.

Featured image: A China Southern Airlines Airbus A350-900 landing at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in 2019. Photo: By N509FZ - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0