(Yicai) Dec. 17 -- Juneyao Airlines has completed its first non-stop passenger flight between Shanghai and Sydney, marking the Chinese carrier's seventh intercontinental route and first to the South Pacific region.

The flight took off from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport on a Boeing 787 and landed at the Sydney Airport yesterday. Juneyao Airlines will initially run the route on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, increasing to a flight a day starting Jan. 14.

Many of the passengers on the first flight were South Korean, Yicai learned. On Juneyao Airlines' previous China-Europe routes from Shanghai, transit passengers accounted for half of all travelers.

In addition to attracting customers from Shanghai, Juneyao Airlines hopes to attract passengers from other Chinese cities, Japan, South Korea, and even Europe to fly to Australia, said Chairman Wang Junjin. The Shanghai-based carrier is also working on attracting travelers on the reverse way, Wang added.

Since Australia's flagship carrier Qantas Airways suspended its Sydney-Shanghai flights in July, Chinese airlines have dominated China-Australia routes. China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Air China, and five other domestic carriers run flights from Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, to Sydney, Melbourne, and others.

Australia has become one of the key destinations for Chinese airlines to restore and increase intercontinental routes due to the unrestricted number of flights and passengers between it and China, unlike limitations between China and Europe, the United States, and others.

The number of flights on the China-Australia route ranked in the top three among all flights operated by China Eastern, China Southern, and Air China last month, while such flights run by Sichuan Airlines and Capital Airlines have exceeded the level of 2019, according to data from travel platform Dast.

Qantas Airways halted flights between Sydney and Shanghai on July 28 due to insufficient demand, the carrier announced in May, just nine months after the route was resumed after a pause during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chinese airlines dominated China-Australia routes before the pandemic, Lin Zhijie, a civil aviation expert, told Yicai. In 2016, seven Chinese carriers flew to Australia and only Qantas flew to China, with the market being split 95 percent to 5 percent, Lin pointed out.

"After the pandemic, Chinese carriers added more idle wide-body aircraft to Australian routes, and the gap between the pair further widened," Lin noted.

Editor: Martin Kadiev