China Southern Airlines will launch the first direct flights between Frankfurt and Changsha, the capital city of central China's Hunan Province. The route will begin operation on June 23 with three round-trip flights a week, the airline said in a statement.
The complete route will be ‘Guangzhou-Changsha-Frankfurt’. Using Airbus A330-200 planes, outbound flights will leave every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and take off at 21:30 from Guangzhou. The plane will arrive in Changsha at 22:45 and head for Frankfurt in 23:55. The return fight will leave Frankfurt at 14:15 on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Then it will arrive in Changsha at 6:45 next day and continue to leave for Guangzhou on 8:00.
The opening of the route will help travelers in Hunan Province save between 5-8 hours in transfer time and cut their costs by 1,000 to 3,000 (about 160 to 479 USD). Currently passengers in the province traveling to Europe have to take connecting flights via Shanghai, Guangzhou or Beijing.