Yangtze River Express (Shanghai Hongqiao) will commence scheduled passenger operations on December 15 with flights from Shanghai Pudong to Sanya. Operations are on-board the freight specialist's sole pax-configured aircraft, B737-800 B-1992 (msn 41376), which WCARN reports was delivered late last month.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) recently gave the carrier the go-ahead to expand its operational scope beyond domestic (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and international cargo services to include scheduled domestic passenger services as well.
A subsidiary of Hainan Airlines (HU, Haikou), Yangtze River Express primarily operates cargo flights across China as well as to Europe, Russia, Asia, and the United States. Its cargo fleet consists of fourteen B737-300(F)s, three B737-300(QC)s, three B737-400(F)s, and three B747-400(F)s.
