Photo: China Eastern Airlines

A total of 7,119 air passengers departed from Wuhan and 4,595 arrived in the city on Wednesday, the first day after its lockdown was lifted, said China civil aviation authorities on Thursday. 

Wuhan airport operated 221 flights on the day it re-opened, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China revealed at a press conference on Thursday. It reached more than one-third of normal flight numbers before the epidemic.

Among them, 107 flights sent 7,119 passengers to cities across the country, with the top three destinations being Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, Haikou in South China's Hainan Province and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province, accounting for 20.6 percent of the total. 

Meanwhile, 4,595 passengers arrived in Wuhan on 114 flights. Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province, Chengdu and Haikou were the top three cities that the flights came from, making up 22.8 percent of the total. 

Overall operations at the airport went smoothly and in an orderly manner under a rigorous work resumption plan, said the official. 

Wuhan, the city hit hardest by COVID-19 in China, lifted its travel restrictions on Wednesday after a 76-day hiatus, marking the normal resumption of life for the city of 11 million people. 

Global Times