Tianjin Airlines resumes direct flight linking Tianjin, Osaka

An international flight carrying 73 passengers departed on Tuesday from North China's Tianjin municipality for Osaka, Japan.

The air route was the first international route resumed by Tianjin Airlines and the first direct route from the Chinese mainland to the Kansai region of Japan after the outbreak of COVID-19, the company said.

The resumption of flights between the two cities will help promote work and production resumption, economic cooperation, trade exchanges, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges, said Yang Zhihua, with Tianjin Airlines.

The company has also launched connecting flights departing from Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Kunming, Urumqi, and other Chinese cities for Osaka, with a stopover in Tianjin.

The air route between Tianjin and Osaka, launched on May 15, 2015, was suspended due to COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020. By 2019, 3,110 flights had been carried out, transporting more than 556,000 passengers.