xinqiao airport in hefei, capital of east china’s anhui province, launched a cargo service to frankfurt, germany on tuesday, the first of its kind connecting the landlocked chinese province with an european destination.
the airport has stepped up efforts to raise goods-handling capacity over the past few years. it built tarmac for cargo aircraft and an international express mail supervision center, kicked off the construction of the second phase of a cargo terminal, and sought to launch freight services, whether domestically or internationally.
a route to los angeles began operation in 2016, following the one that had been launched to south china’s shenzhen a year before.
xinqiao airport handled 7.39 million passengers and 58,000 tonnes of cargo last year, representing a year--on-year increase of 11.8 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively. the latter was much higher than the national average of 5.0 percent.
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