China Eastern Airlines opens a new Qingdao-Hangzhou-Zhanjiang air route on July 3. [Photo/Zhanjiang Airport]

To tap into the burgeoning aviation market, China Eastern Airlines launched a new Qingdao-Hangzhou-Zhanjiang air route on July 3.

The service is operated by Airbus A320 aircraft every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The MU9683 flight leaves Qingdao at 7:45 pm and lands in Hangzhou at 9:30 am. After a 65-minute stopover, it departs again and arrives in Zhanjiang at 12:55 pm.

The return MU9684 flight takes off from Zhanjiang at 1:45 pm and lays over in Huangzhou at 4:05 pm. It leaves the city at 5:05 pm and hits the tarmac in Qingdao Liuting International Airport at 6:55 pm.

Qingdao, a coastal city of East China's Shandong province is a popular tourist destination in summer. [Photo/Xinhua]

Zhanjiang Airport has seen a fast growth this year, with the launch of new air routes to Meizhou, Huizhou, and Wenzhou, as well as more flights to Chengdu, Changsha, Jieyang, Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

In the first half of this year, the airport handled 1.2 million passengers and 9,286.5 tons of cargoes, up 19.8 and 18.9 percent year-on-year respectively. Its monthly passenger throughput remained above 200,000 for the past four months.

Zhanjiang Airport handles 1.2 million passengers and 9,286.5 tons of cargoes in the first half of 2018. [Photo/Zhanjiang Airport]