After Air France announced a resumption of its frequencies to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing in daily operations by July, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have in turn announced the schedule for the resumption of their flights to China. 

Virgin Atlantic is returning to its pre-crisis network

As of April 23, British Airways will relaunch a daily flight between London-Heathrow and Shanghai-Pudong, with one daily flight operated by Boeing 787-9. A second route to China will be re-launched from June 3, between London-Heathrow and Beijing-Daxing, with four weekly frequencies operated by Boeing 777-200ER. Virgin Atlantic will reopen a daily service between London-Heathrow and Shanghai with a Boeing 787-9. When the service resumes, it will have been suspended for exactly 859 days. The resumption of the Shanghai service for Virgin Atlantic will, moreover, be the last route resumed by the British airline, which will have restored its entire pre-crisis international schedule by the time it resumes. 

Chinese airlines still shy of the UK

For the moment, the UK-China market is occupied by five Chinese airlines. To London-Heathrow, Air China serves routes from Beijing and Shanghai, Beijing Capital Airlines operates a route from Qingdao, China Eastern Airlines from Shanghai and China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou. Hainan Airlines also operates a route between Beijing (Capital) and Manchester. All of these routes operate once a week, according to OAG data.