Barcelona recovers all pre-pandemic flight connections with Asia as Shanghai route returns

Air China has recovered the direct flight connection between Barcelona and Shanghai four years after it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With this connection, the airline has returned to offering all routes connecting Barcelona and Asia before the health emergency. 

The first flight back to the Chinese city was on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, which had availability for 331 passengers. 

The connection will have three weekly journeys from the Catalan capital on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  

The first time this 12-hour and 10-minute route flew was in 2017. 

In June 2023, the same airline resumed the connection between the Catalan capital and Beijing. 

During the act organized to celebrate the recovery of the Shanghai route, Jordi Valls, the deputy mayor of the Barcelona city council, stated that “the expansion of the airport would be good for the city as it would bring more intercontinental flights to Barcelona, which is what the debate should be about.” 

The Chinese consul in Barcelona, Zhu Jianyang, highlighted that the flight “creates a stronger connection between the two cities that share a lot of economic and cultural links.” 

In addition, the vice president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Miquel Martí, said that Shanghai is the first city in aerial exportations from Barcelona's Josep Tarradellas-Barcelona El Prat airport: "That is already enough of a reason to recover this connection," he stated. 

The flight took off from Barcelona at 12:40 pm on Tuesday and is expected to land in Shanghai at 6:50 am the following day, local time. The return flight departs at 12:45 am and arrives in Catalonia at 8:05 am.