A few months after Hainan Airlines of China announced it was increasing the frequency of its flights on the Tel Aviv-Beijing route to four a week, the company today announced that it was adding a fifth weekly flight during the peak demand period in May-June.
The flight will take off from Beijing on Saturday at 1:55 AM and land at Ben Gurion Airport at 7:45 AM the same day. On the same day, a flight will take off from Ben Gurion Airport at 2:40 PM and land in Beijing at 5:00 AM the next day.
The company also announced that it would change the days of its flights. Starting in March, the Monday flight will be switched to Wednesday, giving the company flights on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and starting in May on Saturdays.
Hainan began flying to Israel in late April 2016. Company figures show that its share of the market for direct flights to China is 62%. Hainan is competing with El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) in this segment.
Hainan Israel general manager Li Liang said, "Adding a fifth weekly flight in May and June is a vote of confidence by company headquarters in the Israel market. We continue to be pleasantly surprised by the strong demand in Israel, and even more by the demand in China. The company's entry into the market was a gamble that has yielded impressive results to date. We're proud of our contribution to increasing passenger traffic to Israel among Chinese people, and of changing the Israeli aviation market to China. We note that it will soon be a year since we launched the Israel-Beijing route, and are planning a further substantial expansion in our business in Israel. We're confident that the Saturday flights will be filled quickly with businessmen and tourist groups, who will continue enjoying our excellent flights at particularly worthwhile prices."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on February 28, 2017
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