China Southern Airlines will provide the Urumqi-St. Petersburg direct flight service from July 16 this year.
The air route will link Xinjiang's capital Urumqi with St. Petersburg in Russia. The flights run four times per week, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Boeing 757 will be used on the international route. The direct flight can transport 190 passengers per single trip.
At present, there are direct flights only linked Beijing and St. Petersburg. The passengers from Urumqi have to transfer another plane at Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan or at Moscow in Russia to arrive in St. Petersburg, which totally takes 11 hours or so.
The new direct flight will take about 5 hours. Urumqi will become China's second-biggest hub for flights to and from Russia, second only to Beijing.