CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Hainan Airlines held a press conference in Chongqing on the afternoon of May 12, announcing the official resumption of direct flights from Chongqing to Seattle beginning May 16.

The route is scheduled to operate one round-trip flight per week, with flights departing every Thursday. Departing from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport at 11:20 Beijing time, the flight is expected to arrive at Seattle Tacoma International Airport at 9:00 local time on the same day, with an estimated flight time of 12 hours and 40 minutes. The return flight is scheduled to depart from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at 11:00 and arrive at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport at 16:00 the following day, with an estimated flight time of 14 hours.

It's learned that this route marks the first direct international route to Seattle from the western region, establishing Chongqing as the only provincial-level administrative region besides Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and others with existing US routes, to be approved for opening new routes to the United States.

During the press conference, officials from Hainan Airlines stated that the HNA Group is accelerating the construction of Chongqing International Headquarters and the main aviation base airline company. In the future, they plan to gradually open intercontinental routes from Chongqing to North America and Europe, as well as direct international routes to Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, based on the approval of air rights and other factors. According to their plans, by 2027, three additional intercontinental routes and seven Southeast Asian routes will be opened.

As of now, Hainan Airlines has resumed, newly opened, or planned to operate over 40 international and regional round-trip passenger routes departing from cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Haikou, Chongqing, Xi'an, Changsha, Taiyuan, Dalian, and Guangzhou." (Translated by Wang Zhong, Fathom Language Limited)