Chengdu to inaugurate five international air services

SOUTHWESTERN China city Chengdu plans to roll out five international air routes linking US, Europe and Middle East in 2010 in a bid to develop a more extensive network covering major air hubs of the world, Xinhua reported.

The five routes will connect Chengdu to Los Angeles or San Francisco, Frankfurt or Paris, Tokyo or Osaka, Dubai or Doha, and to Asian countries.

Meanwhile, Chengdu will also launch new air services to the three major Chinese air hub of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou with flight duration of about one hour to its neighbouring cities of Kunming and Lhasa with flight duration of about half hour.

This will be a significant move in Chengdu's strategy to develop itself into a logistics hub in western China, the city's logistics industry administration office director Cheng Zhongwei said. Chengdu is aiming at building up an air cargo network covering western China, the three domestic key hubs and other major hubs of the world.

In the upcoming three years, Chengdu will focus on warehousing, distribution and express delivery to boost development of the local logistics industry. The city's target is to achieve an added value of CNY50 billion (US$7.3 billion) and an annual growth of 18 per cent in the logistics industry by 2012.

(Source: www.schednet.com)