by Fanis Zois

 

Chinese tourists have already started to make their appearance in the center of Athens, after the reactivation of direct flights, connecting Beijing and Greece. Direct flights between Beijing and Athens have been suspended, due to the pandemic.

 

Before the pandemic, about 7 million Chinese tourists traveled to different destinations in Europe, while in 2019, almost 218,000 visited Athens, double the number of 2017, when direct flights with Beijing began. It should be noted that at the end of 2019, there were three direct flights per week from Beijing alone.

 

Air China currently operates two flights a week to Athens, one from Beijing and one from Shanghai. In a recent presentation of the company's plans, Director General of Air China in Greece, Heyun Fan, said that if there is demand, it will proceed to increase the available capacity of its flights.

 

Athens ranks fourth in the ranking of destinations that have reactivated direct flights with China according to a new Marbian study based on flight data connecting the world's major cities to China. At the top of Marbian's list are Budapest, Lisbon and Warsaw. Accordingly, these three capitals have increased their air connectivity with China by 138%, 107% and 6% for this year compared to 2019.

 

Next up in connectivity recovery are Athens, Minsk, Frankfurt, Munich, Khabarovsk, Brussels, Copenhagen and London, with 38% below 2019 in the case of Athens and between 50% and 63% for the rest.

 

A lot of capitals around the world are working to regain one of the most coveted tourism markets. The study analyzed data updated on January 23 for direct flights in 2023 between European destinations and China. Flight recovery will be gradual, with most of the destinations analyzed still below pre-pandemic volumes in 2019.

 

In the latter group are European capitals that have reactivated their capacity less in China. Like Rome, Paris and Madrid, they belong to this category. These three cities have volumes between 72% and 90% lower than in the pre-pandemic period.

 

The recovery of the Chinese market will be gradual despite the high demand of its citizens to visit other countries, emphasizes a company executive. Reactivating air connections is key to this process and it will take some time for airlines to reschedule and redistribute their capacity to meet the increasing demand.