Chinese airlines are busily exploring new flight networks at home and abroad as the summer travel season approaches, with flights to Europe becoming a major source of traffic.
On Thursday morning, a plane carrying 213 passengers operated by China Southern Airlines began its maiden flight from Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province to Budapest of Hungary.
The new route means China Southern now operates 53 international routes departing from Guangzhou, including 11 routes to Europe.
The launch of this route will help to facilitate trade, tourism cooperation, and cultural exchanges between the two countries, according to an airline representative.
Air China is also increasing its capacity on international routes, as the carrier said on Wednesday that it will launch and resume 13 international routes including launching Beijing-Dhaka and Chengdu-Milan routes, resuming a Shanghai-Barcelona route, and increasing the frequency of flights such as Beijing-Copenhagen and Chengdu-Singapore.
The number of international and regional routes operated by Air China will recover to more than 90 percent of 2019 levels by the end of the year, reaching 114 routes, covering 43 countries and regions across six continents, the airlines said.
Chinese airlines have taken a majority of the market share in terms of current China-Europe routes, per industry data.
Industry data Flight Master showed that, as of June this year, the recovery rate of domestic airlines on the China-Europe route has reached 107.9 percent, compared with 46.4 percent of foreign airlines.
In June this year, the flight volume share of Chinese carriers on the China-Europe routes accounted for 72.4 percent, while the share of foreign airlines was only 27.6 percent.
