Acting according to the work arrangement of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, and following the pandemic prevention and control requirement of “guarding against imported cases and a rebound in domestic cases”, CAAC is poised to gradually restore direct operations to Beijing starting September 3 for the Beijing-bound international passenger flights which previously had their entry points diverted to the designated first entry points in China. This move, which is only possible if strict prevention and control measures are taken to guard against imported cases, aims to ensure the stable and orderly operations of international passenger flights under the backdrop of the implementation of regular pandemic prevention and control measures, give a better play to the role of Beijing as an international aviation hub, improve the efficiency of international passenger and cargo transport, and facilitate international travel.

To strictly control the imported cases in Beijing, since March 23, all international passenger flights bound for Beijing have been diverted to the designated first entry points in China, where passengers who passed quarantine inspection could continue their journey to Beijing on the original flight. As of 1 September, 511 international passenger flights have been diverted to the first entry points. As regular pandemic prevention and control measures have been put in place, China will begin allowing direct flights to Beijing. After evaluating the progress made in nucleic acid testing in relevant countries of origin, starting September 3, China will restore, in the first stage, the operations of 9 flights to Beijing from Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Canada, from all of which low numbers of imported cases were reported. The first flight following the restoration of direct flights to Beijing will be on September 3 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia operated by Air China.

In order to step up pandemic prevention and control following the restoration of flights, CAAC will put in place more stringent prevention and control measures in addition to the flight circuit-breaker policy on all direct international passenger flights to Beijing. First, where a single flight imports such an amount of cases that requires the application of the circuit breaker policy, measures to such effect will be taken immediately, and such a flight will be diverted to a designated first point of entry in China when the circuit breaker period expires.Second, where more than 3 cases are reported on the same flight, CAAC will reimpose the diversion to a first point of entry. Third, a strict control will be imposed on the passenger load factors of direct international flights to Beijing and on the daily number of passengers flying directly to Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA). Fourth, in addition to the strict nucleic acid testing for passengers at points of origin and airport prevention and control measures, a closed-loop management will be implemented for such inbound passengers, to guard against the imported cases to the greatest extent possible.

In the next step, while taking into consideration the work arrangement of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, the pandemic prevention and control requirements and passengers receiving capacity of BCIA, and the progress made in nucleic acid testing in relevant countries of origin, CAAC will comprehensively assess such factors as the risk of importing cases of infections, the overall support capacity, route and flight arrangements, and passenger demand, in an effort to make coordinated arrangements for the direct operations to Beijing for other international passenger flights diverted to the first points of entry in China.