The first flight from Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province to Beijing since the outbreak of COVID-19 takes off on Tuesday, operated by China Southern Airlines and marking the official resumption of flights between the two cities.

 The first flight from Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province to Beijing since the outbreak of COVID-19 took off on Tuesday, operated by China Southern Airlines and marking the official resumption of flights between the two cities.

The flight departed on Tuesday afternoon from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to Beijing Daxing International Airport. It was also the first Wuhan-Beijing flight to land at the new Daxing airport, which has officially replaced the Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) on the route with China Southern Airlines. 

A flight from Beijing to Wuhan is scheduled to take off later in the evening on the same day. A return flight will be operated every day from Tuesday. 

Wuhan relaxed its restrictions on traffic departing from Hubei on April 8, and China Southern has since operated 2,616 flights to and from Hubei as of press time. Around 50 percent of domestic flights in Hubei have been resumed, compared to the same period last year. 

On May 28, a second China Southern cargo flight route was opened in Hubei, flying from Wuhan to London in order to meet the export traffic demand of businesses in the province. 

The airline is further resuming flights from Wuhan to other cities in June, including Shanghai, Kunming in Southwest China's Yunan Province, Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province and Haikou in South China's Hainan Province, according to a company statement. 

China Southern is the largest airline operating in the Daxing airport. Flight time from Wuhan to Beijing has been reduced by eight to 10 minutes following the airline's shift to Daxing, and flight time from Beijing to Wuhan has been reduced by at least 22 minutes.