China Eastern Airlines' Moscow Office has announced that the company has opened nonstop passenger and cargo flights from Sanya to Moscow on April 26.

At the beginning of the operation, there will be one flight every two weeks. The new service is operated using Airbus A340-300 aircraft and a single flight takes about eleven hours.

Li Jun, general manager of China Eastern Airlines Moscow Office said that the tourism communication and cooperation between Sanya and Moscow will be further strengthened with the opening of the new flights. Prior to this, there is only one Russian airline, Transaero, operated nonstop flights from Moscow to Sanya.

Published data indicates that in 2007, Sanya welcomed 510,000 overseas tourists - an annual growth rate of 32%. Of these 151,100 tourists were from Russia, a 76.64% increase on last year. As result of this, Russia has become the largest tourist source market for Sanya, exceeding South Korea.