(Yicai) Feb. 6 -- China Eastern Airlines, one of the country’s big three carriers, will debut a new daily round-trip route between Shanghai and Hangzhou this month in the hope of attracting more passengers from surrounding cities to take international flights from Shanghai.

The first of the new flights will depart on Feb. 22, Yicai learned. The journey between Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, 176 kilometers apart, comes in at under an hour and economy class tickets cost CNY170 (USD24), per booking websites.

The short-haul route aims to connect China Eastern’s international flights from Pudong Airport and provide more convenient transfer services for passengers going to Hangzhou and nearby cities in response to competition from high-speed trains. It takes just 46 minutes between either city by bullet train and second-class seats cost as little as CNY73 (USD10).

Last year, China Eastern also opened a new route between Shanghai and Ningbo, two cities that are even closer to each other than Shanghai and Hangzhou, after launching another between Shanghai and Nanjing to develop the Yangtze River Delta market many years ago.

Competition between China’s big airlines and their smaller rivals helps to explain the push to the first-tier city. Before the pandemic, smaller carriers turned up the heat on big players such as Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern Airlines by slashing ticket prices to foreign destinations from second and third-tier cities.

China's outbound tourism market is picking up. There were more than 4,780 outbound passenger flights a week as of Dec. 31, recovering to almost 63 percent of the pre-pandemic level, according to official data. These flights took travelers to 67 countries, down from 74.

Editor: Emmi Laine