China Eastern Airlines, one of the nation's three biggest carriers, on Wednesday launched a new air route from Shanghai, the largest metropolis of China, to Lhasa via Xi'an.

The company will employ three A319 Airbus planes, which are adapted to high altitude conditions, to fly the route.

According to company sources, one Shanghai-Xi'an-Lhasa flight serves every day. The plane takes off from the Shanghai Pudong Airport at 8:20 a.m. and arrives in Xi'an, a famous tourist destination and provincial capital of northwest China's Shaanxi, at 10:30 a.m. It leaves Xi'an at 12:30 p.m. and arrives in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, at 3:10 p.m.

Then the plane takes off from Lhasa at 4:00 p.m., returns to Xi'an at 6:20 p.m. and is back to Shanghai at 10:15 p.m.

It has been reported that the operation of the Qinghai-Tibet railway on July 1 will boost tourist entries to Tibet by 400,000 a year. Of the total, 100,000 will likely choose to enter or leave the region by air, the Tibet tourism authorities predict.

Most of the visitors will come from economically booming Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai at the center, the Pearl River Delta in south China and the Chengdu-Chongqing area in the southwest, company sources said.

Besides China Eastern Airlines (NYSE:CEA, HK:0670), the other two leading Chinese carriers will add efforts to explore the market.

China Southern Airlines (NYSE:ZNH, HK:1005) will increase its Guangzhou-Lhasa flights from two a week to one flight a day in the July-September period, a golden time to travel Tibet.

Air China, which monopolized air travel in and out of Tibet for decades, is also planning to raise aviation capacity to Lhasa.

(Xinhua News Agency June 29, 2006)