China Eastern Airlines will make its Milan Malpensa and Venice Marco Polo debuts in September.
Bringing China Eastern to four Italian routes
With Venice becoming part of the Chinese airline's network for the first time, the carrier is to introduce the route from Shanghai Pudong to Venice Marco Polo and from Xi'an Xianyang to Milan from 26 September 2024. Both routes will be operated three times a week with Airbus A330 aircraft. The launch of the two new connections will bring to four the number of Italian routes operated by the Chinese carrier, which currently serves Rome Fiumicino Airport from Shanghai and twice-weekly flights from Wenzhou, this latter scheduled to stop at the end of the summer.
Issues with overflying Russian airspace
The expansion comes as Chinese carriers continue to strengthen their European networks, while at the same time some European majors are limiting their services to mainland China, due to complications with overflying Russian territories. Excluding routes to Russia, according to data compiled by OAG, Chinese airlines have added or announced 13 new routes to European cities this year. These include China Southern Airlines‘ flights from Guangzhou to the Hungarian capital Budapest and London Gatwick, and Juneyao Airlines’ routes from Shanghai to Athens, Brussels and Manchester; finally, Air China will also introduce a flight between Chengdu and Milan Malpensa from the end of July.
