China’s fourth-largest air carrier, Hainan Airlines, to operate three direct weekly flights from Beijing to Tel Aviv starting on April 28.
Hainan Airlines, who are ranked as one of only seven airlines to be ranked as a five-star airline by Skytrax, have originally been given approval to fly up to 14 weekly flights.
The route will operate on days that El Al flights to Beijing do not: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 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 US$120 billion on their vacations.
