In a positive sign for air traffic between China and the United States, Hainan Airlines has announced the opening of a new route connecting Haikou, the capital of southern China’s Hainan Province, with Seattle starting next month.
The weekly round-trip flight begins on September 26 and includes a stopover in Chongqing in southwest China.
Flight HU445 leaves Haikou every Thursday. Both the outbound and return flights include a stopover in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing.
The outbound flight from China will depart Haikou Meilan International Airport at 7:00 a.m. Beijing time and arrive in Chongqing at 9:10 a.m. It will depart Chongqing Airport at 11:20 a.m. and arrive at Seattle Tacoma International Airport in Washington State at 9:00 a.m. Seattle time. The flight duration is expected to be 17 hours.
The return flight leaves Seattle at 11 a.m. local time and arrives in Chongqing the next day at 4 p.m. Beijing time. Departure from Chongqing is at 6:30 p.m. and arrival at Haikou Airport is at 8:45 p.m. The estimated flight time is 18 hours and 45 minutes.
Hainan Airlines flies to Seattle, but via Beijing.
The new route will be Hainan Airlines’ first from Haikou to the United States. It will also support the development of the Hainan Free Trade Port.
In recent years, Hainan has stepped up its efforts to resume and open international air routes. As of May, the province had 46 overseas passenger routes, and the number is expected to rise to 62 by the end of this year.
The flight could also contribute to Haikou’s efforts to attract international talent.
In June, the city published the “Notice on Recruiting Urgently Needed Talents Among Foreign Graduates for Enterprises and Institutions in 2024.”
The aim of the initiative is to recruit 342 talented international university graduates for companies and institutions.
Of the positions, 19 are for public institutions, 10 for statutory institutions, 61 for state-owned enterprises and 252 for enterprises located in the city’s main industrial parks.
Hainan Airlines was founded in 1993 and its subsidiaries served nearly 1,800 domestic and international routes in 2023.
In February 2024, Hainan Airlines was awarded the One Star Flight Safety Diamond Award by the Civil Aviation Administration of China for 10 million consecutive hours of safe flight.
However, air traffic between the US and China is still well below pre-pandemic levels and is also affected by political tensions.
The number of international flights by international airlines from North America and Europe to China has fallen by more than 60 percent this summer from a peak of over 13,000 in 2018, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing data from industry watchdog OAG.
However, Chinese airlines have only reduced their flights on these routes by 30 percent since their peak in 2019, the FT reported. And they are offering twice as many flights on these routes this summer as their Western rivals.
The US Department of Transportation approved an increase in the frequency of flights between the US and China in February. This will allow Chinese passenger airlines to increase their weekly round-trip flights to the US from 35 to 50 starting in March 2024. However, this number is only a third of the pre-pandemic level, airlinegeeks.com reported.
