As the Spring Festival approaches, an airport in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, has rolled out a series of measures to meet surging passenger demand during the travel rush period.
These new measures include launching new routes, resuming suspended flights, increasing frequency on key routes, expanding services to popular destinations, and deploying larger aircraft models.
The 40-day travel season this year began on Feb 2 and will last until March 13. Each year during the period, millions of people working, studying or living away from their hometowns return for the Spring Festival, China's most important traditional holiday, forming the world's largest annual human migration.
During the busy travel season, Taiyuan Wusu International Airport will add 18 new routes and resume 12 others, with plans to operate a total of 12,000 flights and handle 1.75 million passengers. It will significantly increase flights between Taiyuan and major hub cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and other key cities for returning travelers.
With passenger numbers rising during the travel rush, the airport will also identify first-time flyers and passengers in need of urgent assistance, providing them with special wristbands to offer priority services throughout check-in, baggage drop, security screening, and boarding.
"International and regional routes have become a new highlight of this year's Spring Festival travel season. The airport launched direct flights from Taiyuan to Bangkok, Phuket, Nha Trang, and Macao, significantly improving travel efficiency. Together with existing routes to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, an air corridor covering Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia has been established," said Hao Juwei, a staff member at the airport.
Taiyuan airport enhances transport capacity for Spring Festival travel rush
China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao outlined the key priorities of the 32nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, which opened on Friday in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province.
In an interview with CGTN ahead of the two-day meeting, Wang said free trade, digital cooperation and green economy are high on the agenda of the meeting.
"The key areas include advancing regional economic integration and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, supporting the World Trade Organization (WTO) in strengthening digital cooperation and developing green economy. At present, the international situation is marked by intertwined turbulence and chaos, with intensified geopolitical instability. The rise of unilateralism and protectionism poses serious challenges to the international economic and trade order, disrupting global and Asia-Pacific development. Against this backdrop, all parties have higher expectations for this trade ministers' meeting, hoping that it can build consensus and deliver outcomes," Wang said.
This year marks China's third time hosting the APEC meetings and the 35th anniversary of its membership.
By 2025, China had become the largest trading partner of 13 APEC economies. Trade between China and APEC economies reached 3.7 trillion U.S. dollars, accounting for 57.8 percent of China's total foreign trade.
China has signed 24 free trade agreements or economic and trade arrangements with 31 countries and regions, including 15 APEC economies. In recent years, China has also completed upgrades of free trade agreements with APEC economies such as Singapore and Peru.
The minister said that China has always been a firm supporter and an important contributor to APEC.
"We have actively shared our vast market and development opportunities with all parties. China's door to the world will only open wider and wider. Facing the common challenges, China will continue to fulfill its responsibilities as a major country, further deepen reform, expand high-standard opening-up, and continue to provide new opportunities for the Asia-Pacific region and the world with its new achievements in Chinese modernization," the minister said.
China's Commerce Minister outlines priorities for 32nd APEC trade ministers' meeting
