According to Portugal’s internationalisation minister, Eurico Brilhante Dias, the new route will allow tourists, business people, researchers, professors and university students to travel easily between one territory and the another.


As from 30 August, the airline is to run three flights weekly using Airbus A330 aircraft, with a maximum capacity of 440 passengers.
The new route, announced last month by the company, replaces the direct link between Hangzhou, on China’s east coast, and Lisbon, with a stop in Beijing, which was suspended in October last year.


Luis Araújo, the president of Turismo de Portugal, the national tourist board, highlighted the importance of the Portugal-China partnership, remembering that 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the official establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.


In 2018 Portugal received more than 315,000 Chinese tourists, with average annual growth over the last three years of 25 percent and up by 17.1 percent in the first five months of this year.


The existence of good air connections is fundamental to increasing the number of tourists who visit, Araújo said.