After returning to operations in Israel about two months ago, and against the backdrop of the lifting of the Corona restrictions in China, the Chinese airline Hainan Airlines announces that it will return to operating its direct flight line to Beijing. The flights will be operated twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays starting from February 15th, 2023, in modern Dreamliner and Airbus planes.

The company, the fourth largest in China, entered Israel by storm in 2016, but completely suspended its activities in the country in February 2020, after the outbreak of the global corona crisis. Now, with the return of the line to Beijing, alongside the lines that Hainan already operates to Shenzhen and Shanghai, the Chinese are back and bigtime with three direct lines to three different destinations in China and dozens of onward destinations in the giant country.

The company’s announcement regarding the direct line between Tel Aviv and Beijing came a few days after China lifted the latest Corona restrictions, including the restrictions on entering China that had been in place for the past three years. Today, travelers to China are required to have a negative PCR test at least 48 hours before departure and fill out a health declaration only. Those entering China are no longer required to be quarantined.

The first flight to Beijing will take off just three months after the company re-launched the line to Shenzhen (once a week on Tuesdays), and two months after the launch of the line to Shanghai (once a week on Thursdays). The dizzying pace of opening the lines characterizes the Chinese company and it seems that the demand in China for flights to Israel is expected to return to pre-corona levels sooner than expected.

CEO of Hainan Airlines Israel, Andy Wei, said: “We are very excited to announce the opening of our most important route to China – Tel Aviv-Beijing. The Israeli market exceeded all our expectations in the days before the Corona and we are convinced that the opening of the line to Beijing along with the lifting of the Corona restrictions in China will return the Chinese tourists and businessmen to Israel, and the Israelis to China. We are ready to provide passengers with the best service and are looking forward to our first flight to Beijing, the capital of China, on 15.2. We hope to increase the frequency of flights to Shenzhen and Shanghai soon in order to meet the expected demand, and look forward to finally returning to pre-Corona operations and making all of China accessible to the Israeli passenger with our onward flights”.