(Yicai Global) Jan. 19 -- Juneyao Air and Spring Airlines resumed flights between Shanghai and Thailand yesterday, as Chinese carriers restart a regular schedule of international flights for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. And more than 95 percent of seats on the first flight headed for Phuket were taken, online news outlet The Paper reported.

Juneyao Air now has two roundtrips flights a day between Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and Phuket as well as to Chiang Mai, the Shanghai-based carrier said. Soon it will hike the number of flights to Phuket to 10 a week. And the number of flights to Bangkok has increased to seven a week from the previous one and this is likely to jump to eight per week depending on passenger loads and the market situation, it added.

Budget airline Spring Airlines is also offering flights from Shanghai to Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai, as well as from Guangzhou to Bangkok and Chiang Mai as well as from Nanning in southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Bangkok.

Spring Tour, the owner of Spring Airlines, will start to offer a greater variety of outbound tours and activities, now that international flights are resuming and after the Ministry of Culture and Tourism started to allow travel agencies to organize group tours, self-guided tours and flight-and-hotel packages again, said Deputy General Manager Zhou Weihong.

Before Covid-19, Spring Airlines operated four flights a day between Shanghai and Phuket. And Shanghai-based Spring Tour used to organize activities for more than 150 tourists each day before the pandemic.

Editor: Kim Taylor