Photo: Xinhua

Air France said on Monday that it plans to restart weekly flights to Beijing on Thursday, becoming the first airline in Europe to resume service to Beijing amid the pandemic. 

Airline passengers arriving in China still face a range of quarantine measures in different cities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Most of the cities require passengers to undergo quarantine for 14 days, with some allowing passengers with special circumstances to self-isolate.   

Air France restarted twice weekly flight to Shanghai on June 18. 

The new Air France flight from Paris will land in the city of Tianjin, north of Beijing, while the return flight to Paris will depart from Beijing Capital International Airport, the carrier said. 

European countries are the second most popular destination for passengers from China. 

Air China, which operates the most flights between China and Europe resumed direct flights from Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province to Frankfurt in Germany on Thursday, the first flight to restart from western China to Europe. 

Lufthansa will resume flights from Shanghai, Nanjing and Hong Kong to Frankfurt and Zurich in September, with twice weekly flights between Shanghai to Frankfurt, the airline said. 

Currently, more than 10 carries from European countries, including Swiss Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Finnair and Russia Airlines are offering flights to China.

Flights between China and North America remain limited. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Air Canada are offering flights from San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver to Shanghai or Guangzhou. 

Air Canada said it will offer twice weekly flights between Vancouver and Shanghai beginning on August 30. 

Data from VariFlight show that from August 1 to 11, inbound international passenger flights into Shanghai's Pudong Airport account for 24.92 percent of all the flights to China.