China’s fourth-largest air carrier, Hainan Airlines, to operate three direct weekly flights from Beijing to Tel Aviv starting on April 28. The Chinese airline is offering a market beating $741 return fare to Beijing. A return ticket for a direct flight will cost $741.
The return fare applies to both short and long, six-month stays, which indicates that it is not a one-time promotion but a pretty reasonable pricing policy.
The route will operate on days that El Al flights to Beijing do not: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
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The privately held airways will operate new Airbus A330 aircraft in a two-class configuration, with 176 seats in tourist class and 34 seats in business class.
Even though the number of Chinese tourists visiting Israel has been only about 34, 000, it has been steadily growing, increasing 76 percent between 2012 and 2014. While 116 million Chinese tourists traveled the world. In 2014 alone, Chinese tourists spent $120 billion on their vacations.
In laying the groundwork for the Hainan Airlines flights, the Tourism Ministry has worked to make Israel friendlier to Chinese tourists opening a course for tour guides in Chinese and reducing visa wait times by two-thirds.
“I welcome this important step which can be leveraged with economic growth and increased tourism, ” said Tourism Minister Uzi Landau.
Increasing tourism from Asia, and from China in particular, was an early goal he set in his tenure, said Landau, who recently announced he will not be running in the March election.
READ MORE: Hainan Airlines
The Chinese airline will fly between Israel and China three times a week from September. China’s Hainan Airlines has officially filed a request to launch Tel Aviv-Beijing flights in September. Privately-owned More…
