(Yicai) Oct. 10 -- Scandinavian Airlines, the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, will suspend its only direct air route to China from next month.

The last flight between Copenhagen and Shanghai will be operated by SAS on Nov. 7, according to a notice issued by the Stockholm-based carrier to a ticketing platform yesterday, The Paper reported today.

The current flight path of the Copenhagen-Shanghai route is longer and more expensive to operate, SAS noted when explaining the reasons for the suspension. Fierce competition from Chinese rivals was also mentioned.

China remains an important market for SAS, and the company will continue to pay close attention to the conditions of the Chinese market to be ready for a possible resumption of operations, SAS added.

Other foreign airlines, including Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, and Qantas Airways, have also announced the cancellation of direct flights to Beijing and Shanghai in recent months. They also mentioned higher costs and longer traveling time as reasons.

China’s number of international flights has not yet recovered to the pre-pandemic level in 2019. However, Chinese airlines are in a better situation than their overseas peers.

According to data from travel platform Dast, the resumption rate of international flights operated by Chinese airlines was 85 percent in the first three quarters of the year, compared with 65 percent of those run by foreign carriers.

In terms of market share, Chinese airlines operated 59.1 percent of the total international flights in the nine months ended Sept. 30, up 9.3 percentage points from the same period in 2019.

Editor: Futura Costaglione