China Southern Airlines will add nonstop flights between Beijing and Teheran by the end of March and increase the frequency of flights from two a week to four a week.

Wang Gefan, general manager of China Southern Airlines' office in Teheran, said that the company had decided to add nonstop round-trip flights between Beijing and Teheran starting from March 31, and no longer fly via Urumqi. Currently flights are on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the two new flights will be on Mondays and Fridays. All services will be operated using Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

The additional flights will start from Beijing at 15:10, arriving at Teheran at 18:40 and the return flight will leave Teheran at 20:20, and arrive at Beijing at 07:50 the following day. These new nonstop flights will reduce the flying time to eight hours — current flights via Urumchi take ten hours.

With the 2008 Olympic Games approaching, the number of Iranian tourists to China is expected to increase. And the two countries' business, trade, tourism and culture communications also will encourage the development of the aviation market in both China and Iran.