Monday, March 27, 2023
After a three-year suspension owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese and Dutch airlines resumed direct flights from Amsterdam to Beijing on Sunday.
Passengers were given colourful wooden tulip flowers as presents to mark the memorable occasion at a boarding gate at Schiphol Airport to a fully booked China Southern Airlines flight to Beijing.
The passengers were due to arrive at Beijing Daxing International Airport following a 10-hour trip from Schiphol Airport.
Wilco Sweijen, airline partnerships director at Schiphol Airport, told Xinhua that the flight between Beijing Daxing and Amsterdam was the airport’s first.
“We’re very happy with that, because now that the (Chinese) capital is connected again to Amsterdam.
That’s great,” said Sweijen, who was among airport representatives giving out tulip flowers to passengers.
According to Mack Su, the Chinese airline’s European sales manager, the Amsterdam-Beijing route was halted due to COVID-19 in March 2020, and its restoration indicated the airline’s “comprehensive and accelerated recovery in the China-Europe market.”
According to Su, the new Amsterdam-Beijing Daxing route would begin with four weekly flights and expand based on market demand. Apart from the Beijing route, China Southern Airlines also offers four weekly flights between Amsterdam and Guangzhou, a city in southern China.
On Sunday, a Dutch carrier KLM aircraft left Schiphol Airport for Beijing Capital International Airport, resuming the airline’s flying route to Beijing that had been suspended by the Covid pandemic.
The Dutch airline stated in a previous news release that it marked the “recovery of the routes from and via Amsterdam to China. The Chinese market is important in KLM’s network, due to demand from business travelers.”
Sweijen stated that owing to increased passenger traffic, the number of flights between the Netherlands and China has grown from six to 27 per week.
“That’s only passenger flights,” he stressed, expressing belief that more flights could be added in the near future.
“We see the load factors are good. So we are very happy that it means that there’s a big demand for it,” he said.
