Direct flights resume! No more diversions for inbound international flights to Beijing from Jan. 12

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On January 4, Hainan Airlines issued an announcement saying that according to the relevant policy adjustment, from 00:00 Beijing time on January 12, 2023 (based on landing time), all international flights operated by Hainan Airlines with destinations in Beijing will no longer be diverted and will land directly in Beijing according to the flight plan.

This reporter learned from an insider at Air China that the above policy applies to all airlines, and the implementation time is from January 12 at 00:00. This also means that the nearly three-year-old measure of diverting inbound flights from Beijing has officially come to an end.

In order to strictly control the risk of importing the epidemic into the capital city, as early as March 22, 2020, the Civil Aviation Administration, the National Health Commission and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the “Announcement on the Designated First Point of Entry for International Flights Destined for Beijing (No. 2)”, deciding that starting from 00:00 on March 23, all international passenger flights destined for Beijing must enter from the designated first point of entry.

According to the announcement, the designated first entry points include 12 cities, including Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Hohhot, Shanghai Pudong, Jinan, Qingdao, Nanjing, Shenyang, Dalian, Zhengzhou and Xi’an. Passengers on the relevant international flights will be quarantined at the first entry point and go through the entry procedures, and their luggage will be cleared; passengers whose quarantine meets the boarding conditions can take the original flight into Beijing, and the cargo carried in the belly compartment will be cleared in Beijing.

However, the announcement at the time also emphasized that the arrangement of designated first entry points for international flights destined for Beijing and related measures would be adjusted in due course according to the changing situation of the epidemic.

About six months later, on September 2, 2020, the CAAC issued a new announcement stating that in order to ensure the smooth and orderly operation of international passenger flights under the regular epidemic prevention and control, and to better play the role of Beijing’s international aviation hub, direct international passenger flights to Beijing diverted via the first entry point will be gradually resumed from September 3 onwards.

Among them, 9 flights from 8 countries with less imported cases, such as Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Canada, to Beijing will be resumed first.

Thereafter, the direct international passenger flights to Beijing diverted by the first entry point will continue to resume. Xu Hejian, Vice Minister of the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, had said at the epidemic prevention and control conference that in line with the strategy of small and steady, gradual increase and orderly opening, Beijing will consider expanding the number of direct international flights and the scale of passenger traffic in due course.

According to the situation, it will gradually resume no more than 4-5 international flights per day and the size of the personnel will be around 1,000 people. At the same time, it will closely track the development of the epidemic outside the country and the import of the epidemic after the adjustment of flights, adhere to the dynamic assessment, and serve to ensure the safe and orderly movement of people inside and outside the country.

Until recently, with the policy adjustment, all direct international passenger flights from Beijing previously diverted via the first entry point will also be resumed.

As an example, Air China, which has Beijing Capital Airport as its main operating base, has 26 inbound and outbound international routes in Beijing Capital as of December 28, 2022. Previously, the first point of entry for Beijing Capital-Los Angeles flights was Tianjin, the first point of entry for Beijing Capital-Warsaw was Shenyang, and the first point of entry for Beijing Capital-Milan was Hohhot. Air China insiders said that from January 12, all these inbound flights will be adjusted to direct flights.