The daily Mladá fronta Dnes reports that air travel between Prague and China is exploding. In 2015, just over 12,000 passengers made the trip between the two destinations. Last year, with four Chinese cities offering direct flights to the Czech capital, the figure was 180,000. And the trend is continuing this year, with the 108,000 passengers as of July indicating growth of 6 percent. On top of these direct flights, another 100,000 people travelled from China to Prague on indirect flights. Hainan Airlines was the first to offer direct flights (to Beijing) in 2015 and was followed in 2016 by China Eastern Airlines which established a link to Shanghai. Overall, 7.43 million passengers passed through the Prague airport during the first six months of 2018, an increase of 10 percent from 2017.
