The 2,580 km flight from Qingdao (Shandong Province) to Golmud will take four hours to complete, including stops at Zhengzhou (Henan Province) and Xining (Qinghai Province). There will be flights every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning.

Qin Junwu of SDA said the air company will make an effort in the next few years to add more regional flights to the country's western region to support the Central Government's West China development strategy. SDA is planning to open air routes to Shanxi and Gansu provinces and the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia in the future.

It has already started a regional air service to Urumqi (Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang), Xi'an (Shaanxi Province), Chengdu (Sichuan Province), Kunming (Yunnan Province) and the Chongqing Municipality.

East China's regional air service market has almost reached full capacity, said Qin, adding that most of SDA's 94 flights to 41 Chinese are between cities located in coastal areas.

For the Qingdao-Golmud flight a CRJ-200 airplane will be used, a plane produced by Canada-based Bombardier International. With 50 seats, the aircraft is one of the world's most comfortable jet planes for its size.

Golmud, nicknamed "Salt Lake City", located in the west of Qinghai Province, is the country's largest salt and chemical industrial base. The new flight will increase its contact to the outside, with the east of China in particular.

(People’s Daily 11/27/2000)