(Photo/Wan Chengpeng)
Neos Flight NO976 from Milan with 303 passengers arrived at Nanjing Lukou International Airport at 9:00 am on January 8, the airport's first inbound flight since China downgraded COVID-19 management measures to Class B on the day.
All anti-epidemic facilities such as blue barriers installed to separate international arriving passengers and the public space have been removed.
The adjustment of COVID-19 response means scrapping most of travel restriction measures at the airports such as terminal disinfection, passenger's nucleic acid testing result, health code inspection, and centralized passenger transfer. This has greatly improved the passenger clearance service, and the management time for the flights was reduced by 90 minutes.
The province received 8 inbound flights with 1,549 passengers on January 8, all through Lukou airport except 49 passengers via Changzhou Benniu International Airport. Meanwhile, all arriving passengers across the province were free from centralized quarantine from the day.
Jiangsu has regular passenger services with 10 countries and regions per week. At present, there are 12 airlines operating 9 international and regional passenger routes through Nanjing Lukou International Airpor. The province's two airports in Nanjing and Wuxi also have 14 cargo flights per week linked with Chicago, Anchorage, Amsterdam, Osaka and other destinations.
Preliminary study shows Nanjing will handle about 520 inbound and outbound flights during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, up 233.3% compared with the same holiday last year, according to Huang Xinfeng from the Nanjing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection. Huang said more efforts will be made to optimize the inspection service and let every passenger have a great travel experience.
After China enters new phase of COVID-19 response, some airlines are planning to increase the frequency of flights or open new flights to Manila, Bali, Phuket, Frankfurt and Tokyo.
By the end of January, the number of international passenger flights per week will increase to 58 including 40 in Nanjing, 10 in Wuxi, 5 in Changzhou and 3 in Nantong. In addition, China Airlines will resume the direct cargo service between Nanjing and Taiwan.
