Direct flights to China from El Prat return. The Air China company has spent weeks preparing its return to the Barcelona market, which is expected to crystallize next June. It will initially be with three weekly flights between the Catalan capital and Beijing, according to what La Vanguardia has learned.
The expansion of the covid fully affected the air transport sector, and Air China was one of the first airlines to cut its links to other countries. The state-owned company is the second largest in the country. It has a fleet of almost 500 aircraft, its main hub is at the Beijing airport and it is associated with Star Alliance, the trade group made up of 26 airlines from around the world. Among the companies of the Star group are the German Lufthansa, the Turkish Turkish Airlines, the American United Airlines or the Portuguese TAP, airlines that also operate in El Prat and that progressively returned to this airport once the pandemic was over.
Air China began flying from Barcelona to Beijing in 2014. It started with an intermediate layover at the Vienna airport. This was later replaced by a direct flight to each European city. In 2017, the company expanded its offer with direct flights to Pudong, the largest airport in Shanghai. If the recovery of the line with Beijing this 2023 works as planned, the return of the link with Shanghai would resume in the first weeks of 2024 or even earlier, depending on the availability of slots, crews and fleet.
A notable change compared to the recent times when Air China flew to Barcelona is the geopolitical situation between Europe and Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. Faced with the EU’s ban on Russian aircraft flying over its territory, Russia responded in the same way to the European Union and the United States, closing its airspace to planes from these territories. This veto did not only affect flights to its airports, but also the overflight of aircraft traveling, for example, from Europe to Asia, causing flight times to increase considerably.
China, however, is not affected by these restrictions, neither by Russia nor by the European side. This same Tuesday, several planes from Chinese companies flew over Russia from end to end on their flights to Amsterdam, Stockholm or Rome from Shanghai and Beijing. If this situation of war and restrictions continues, the Airbus A330 or A350 flying from Beijing to Barcelona will also use the most direct route: Russian airspace.