Carrying 89 tons of goods, China Eastern Air Logistics of China Eastern Airlines (CEA) recently launched its first all-cargo direct flight between East China’s Shanghai and Budapest of Hungary.
It is the first regular all-cargo route between the two cities, and follows the launch of China's first direct passenger route between Shanghai and Budapest, which is run by Shanghai Airlines, another subsidiary of CEA.
The cargo plane takes 12 hours to make the non-stop journey from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport. The all-cargo flight will operate three times a week.
With this new route, the number of regular all-cargo destinations in Europe served by China Cargo Airlines has increased to four – Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London being the others – now amounting to a total of 48 round-trip flights per week.
The all-cargo route is flown by the newly-introduced Boeing 777F freighter from China Eastern Air Logistics. Eighty percent of the outbound cargo consists of cross-border e-commerce goods, while imports mainly include auto parts and fresh food. Alongside the all-cargo route, China Eastern Air Logistics also provides air logistics services, utilizing the belly-holds of passenger routes from Shanghai to Budapest, Shanghai-Xi'an-Budapest, and Ningbo to Budapest.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of China and Hungary establishing bilateral diplomatic relations, while more recently, Hungary was the first European country to sign a memorandum of understanding on Belt and Road cooperation with China.
According to statistics from Chinese customs, the bilateral trade volume between China and Hungary exceeded 102.2 billion yuan ($14.08 billion) in 2023, and there appears to be a rapidly growing flow of cross-border e-commerce.
Situated in the heart of Europe, Hungary’s capital city has a unique geographical advantage and has become an important freight hub for the central and eastern parts of the continent in recent years.
The newly opened cargo route will further enhance connectivity and bilateral trade between China and Hungary, supporting high-quality BRI cooperation.
(Executive editor: Zhu Zeya)
