For a Chinese going, a Chinese coming: Fiumicino loses China Southern, at Malpensa China Eastern does the encore

Chinese going, Chinese coming. Never more so than in these years of war between Russia and Ukraine in which they are enjoying the advantage of being among the few that can fly over Russian airspace, chinese airlines have been so dynamic in their connections to Europe, both in terms of ticket prices (extremely competitive) and in terms of cities served and frequencies operated.

Particularly dynamic over the past year has been the situation of connections between the large Asian country and Milan Malpensa Airport. While, in fact, Fiumicino has always been (even in pre-Covid years) among the top 2-3 airports in Europe in terms of cities connected in China and airlines operating, Malpensa was a bit further behind.

In the past year, however, saw as many as two new companies join the 'flagship' carrier Air China: Hainan Airlines (which flies to Chongqing and Shenzen) and Juneyao Air (which flies to Zhengzhou).

And now it will see a third do the trick, after the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the state body that regulates China's air transport, authorized the second-largest airline in the Dragon country (663 aircraft) to serve the Lombardy airport: it is China Eastern Airlines, which already flies between Malpensa and Xi'an, but that Since June 20, it has been given the green light to operate between Shanghai Pudong Airport and Malpensa Airport on a daily basis. The route is already served (again daily) by Air China, which will thus lose the 'monopoly' it enjoyed on the route.

The flights have just gone on sale, and the aircraft used will be an Airbus A350-900, the same model with which the company flies daily from Rome Fiumicino and from Venice to Shanghai, the latter route increasing from three to four weekly frequencies as of June 6. The layout is three-class with 40 seats in Business (1-2-1), 32 in Premium Economy (2-4-2) and 216 in Economy (3-3-3).

The first row of Business is called Business Plus, because it consists of four suites equipped with a door, a locker for personal effects, a personal minibar, and an IFE screen as large as 32 inches, almost twice the size of the one available in the other 36 Business seats, which is 18 inches.

Unlike all flights operated from Malpensa to the Far East (not only to China), China Eastern's Shanghai will take off late in the evening from Milan to arrive in the early afternoon of the next day at its destination. In the reverse direction, that is, between Shanghai and Milan, the flight will be entirely daytime. In detail, the operating schedule sees flight MU244 leaving Malpensa at 9:55 p.m. to land at 3:30 p.m. in Pudong. From Pudong, on the other hand, MU243 will take off at 1:20 p.m. to land at Malpensa at 7:35 p.m. The flight times are 11 hours 30 minutes and 12 hours 15 minutes, respectively.

For a company debuting at Malpensa, another says goodbye, at least for the time being, to Rome Fiumicino. It is the first Chinese company by size (676 aircraft), China Southern Airlines.

Until last Feb. 27 connected the Roman airport with its Guangzhou hub three times a week (on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays), Using a two-class Boeing 787-9 (Business and Economy). From the next day the connection had been suspended for about four months, until next June 16.

But what was supposed to be a temporary interruption has since turned into a permanent one, at least through 2025, since the Rome-Guangzhou non-stop is no longer bookable until at least December 31.

Air China remains active at Fiumicino. (on Beijing and Hangzhou), China Eastern (on Shanghai and Wenzhou), Sichuan Airlines (on Chengdu) and Hainan Airlines (on Chongqing and Shenzen).

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