The inaugural Yichang-Hanoi route is operated by Qingdao Airlines and is scheduled to fly every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Flight QW6193 departs from Yichang at 12:25 and arrives in Hanoi at 17:15 while Flight QW6194 takes off from Hanoi at 14:50 and arrives in Yichang at 18:20.
On the inaugural day, as the 129 Vietnamese passengers on the flight completed their entry inspections, the international passenger throughput at the Sanxia International Airport surpassed 100,000 passenger trips for the year 2024. This marked a new annual record for the airport of Yichang since its opening in 2005. Consequently, it has become the second airport in Hubei Province to achieve an annual inbound and outbound passenger flow of 100,000 trips, following the Wuhan Tianhe Airport.
The data from the border inspection station at Sanxia International Airport reveal that, as of December 12, the airport has seen 672 international flights take off and land this year. The total number of entering and exiting trips has surpassed 100,000, marking a 68.4% jump compared to the previous high in 2019. Notably, foreign passengers have made up over 60,000 of these traveling trips, accounting for 61.1% of the total and representing an increase of 713.6% compared to 2019. This proportion of foreign passenger trips places the Sanxia International Airport at the top among the province’s open ports.
It was learned that the airport plans to add a Yichang-Hong Kong route on December 17 and a Yichang-Haikou-Singapore route on January 2, 2025, to further expand its international and regional airline network. (Reporters/Zhao Jingyi and Tan Yangchenlei, Correspondents/Wang Tingting and Zhong Pengyu)