Deputy Economy Minister: regular flights to China will be restored from 2023

Georgian Deputy Economy Minister Mariam Kvrivishvili on Tuesday said one of the Chinese “leading airlines”, China Southern Airlines, would resume its regular direct flights to Georgia, highlighting China as “one of the priority” destinations for the Georgian tourism sector.

Kvrivishvili said the flights would increase the number of tourists from China to Georgia and would have a “positive impact” on the dynamics and development of tourism and civil aviation sectors in 2023, giving an additional incentive to the deepening of trade and economic relations between the countries. She also highlighted that in pre-pandemic 2019 there had been a 50.9% increase in international visitors from China to Georgia, compared to 2018, the Economy Ministry said.

The Ministry of Economy, along with other agencies determining the country’s civil aviation policy, has been “actively” working to introduce new airlines to the Georgian aviation market, the Deputy Minister said, adding Georgia had “all the opportunities” to become a regional transit hub in the civil aviation sector.

She also noted that the regular flights on the Ürümqi-Tbilisi-Ürümqi route would begin from January 2023, with flights to be operated every Friday until March 25, and added the flights had been suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the last flight performed in January 2020.