(Yicai) July 4 -- Emirates, one of the two flag carriers of the United Arab Emirates, has launched a new daily passenger service between Dubai and Shenzhen, marking the airline’s first new route to China in almost 10 years and reflecting its confident outlook on travel demand.

Emirates expects to see a strong recovery in China’s air travel market this year and next, Orhan Abbas, its senior vice president of commercial operations in the Far East, told Yicai.

The Dubai-based airline has been operating five daily flights to China, serving the destinations of Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. It also plans to launch a new daily flight between Dubai and Hangzhou by the end of this month, and will upgrade its planes on the Dubai-Shanghai route, replacing the Boeing 777 with the larger Airbus A380 in late October.

Emirates made a strategic choice in picking Shenzhen, a sprawling technology hub in China’s southern Guangdong province often given the moniker of “China's Silicon Valley.”

“Shenzhen is home to tech giants such as Huawei, Tencent, and DJI, and it represents a business market that we are committed to developing,” said Li Xun, general manager of Emirates China. As more Chinese companies expand their global reach, Chinese passengers can also use Dubai as a transit hub for destinations across the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, Li added.

Emirates is not the only carrier to recently open new routes between China and the Middle East. In the first half of this year, Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways all launched new direct flights to Riyadh.

Driven by surging demand, the number of flights from China to key Middle Eastern countries has now surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Flights last month versus June 2019 rose 17 percent for China-Dubai, 42 percent for China-Türkiye, 59 percent for China-Qatar, and more than tripled for China-Saudi Arabia, according to aviation data platform DAST.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine