BEIJING – China Southern Airlines has announced to launch regular flights between Urumqi, the capital of Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Lahore in June.
The carrier is also planning to launch 11 new domestic routes in the region, according to vice sales manager of the company’s Xinjiang branch.
Xu Jianmin said that five of the routes will connect regional cities such as Yining, Karamay and Korla with cities in central and southern parts of China.
Urumqi Air, an affiliate of Hainan Airlines, will add six routes in the new summer-autumn aviation season started from Sunday. It plans to operate new international routes to central and western Asian countries.
A record high of more than 21.5 million passengers travelled through Urumqi International Airport, the biggest airport in Xinjiang, in 2017.
Headquartered in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, China Southern is one of China’s “Big Three” airlines (alongside Air China and China Eastern Airlines), the world’s sixth-largest airline measured by passengers carried and Asia’s largest airline in fleet size, revenue and passengers carried.
With its main hubs at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Beijing Capital International Airport, the airline operates more than 2,000 flights to 208 destinations daily as a member of SkyTeam.
