China Southern Airlines will soon launch services between its hub in Guangzhou and Belgrade. The airline’s provisional flight schedule has now been released by Nikola Tesla Airport. According to the filing, flights will begin on September 25 and operate twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. According to the released schedule, the airline will depart Guangzhou for Belgrade after midnight, arriving in the Serbian capital at 08:00 in the morning. The return flight will depart at 11:00 in the morning and arrive back in China between 05:00 and 06:00 the following day. The airline will use its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on the route. It operates both the -8 and -9 versions of the jet, which can seat between 266 and 297 passengers.
China Southern Airlines is one of the world’s largest airlines. This year it is the world’s sixth-largest airline in terms of available seat capacity, with only American Airlines, Delta, Ryanair, Southwest Airlines and United doing better. Similar to other Chinese airlines, it has rapidly expanded its European network this year, taking advantage of its European rivals’ inability to meet demand for travel from China as they face rising costs due to bans on overflights through Russian airspace. The United Kingdom is China Southern’s largest European market, followed by Russia, the Netherlands, France, Turkey, Italy, Hungary, Germany and finally Luxembourg.