{"id":23387,"date":"2026-04-28T18:41:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/23387\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T18:41:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:41:25","slug":"canadas-push-to-rebuild-ties-with-china-hits-a-snag-a-lack-of-direct-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/23387\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s push to rebuild ties with China hits a snag: a lack of direct flights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Canada plans to allow more flight connections to China, as it seeks to rebuild ties with Beijing and capitalise on rising demand for Canadian travel among Chinese tourists, but airlines may be reluctant to add new routes due to soaring jet fuel costs and a lack of access to Russian airspace.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Steven MacKinnon, Canada\u2019s transport minister, announced last week that Ottawa would permit an \u201cincremental\u201d increase in direct passenger combination flights to China and up to 20 cargo flights per week.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Tourism is central to that relationship, analysts said, with demand for bilateral travel rising on both sides of the Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese tourists have a growing interest in \u201copen\u201d natural scenery and \u201cculturally diverse\u201d cities, common assets in Canada, said Subramania Bhatt, CEO of the technology and marketing firm China Trading Desk. He added that they also saw Canada as more accessible after a <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/diplomacy\/article\/3331364\/china-gives-green-light-group-travel-canada-after-xi-carney-summit?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">resumption of group tours<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">There has been a \u201csteady\u201d rise in bookings to Canada by Chinese travellers in recent years, particularly to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa, according to Fliggy, a major Chinese travel booking platform. Fliggy is owned by Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the South China Morning Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada plans to allow more flight connections to China, as it seeks to rebuild ties with Beijing and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1206,11639,5152,17,337,11640,11644,11638,111,3293,11641,11642,6940,48,11643],"class_list":{"0":"post-23387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-air-canada","9":"tag-alibaba-group-holding","10":"tag-beijing","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-dragon-trail-international","14":"tag-fliggy","15":"tag-huawei-technologies","16":"tag-mark-carney","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-shanghai","19":"tag-south-china-morning-post","20":"tag-steven-mackinnon","21":"tag-toronto","22":"tag-ukraine-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}