Canberra airport deal with overseas counterparts clears runway for more direct flights

Canberra Airport has signed a deal with a big group of Chinese airports to hopefully begin direct flights.

The idea is also to open a gateway for Chinese tourists to enter Australia via the nation's capital.

Canberra Airport and inset, Canberra Airport Chief Executive Officer Stephen Byron and Eastern Airports Group Vice-President Fan Hao on Tuesday evening. Pictures supplied, Karleen Minney

On Tuesday night, the chief executive of Canberra Airport Stephen Byron signed a memorandum of understanding with executives from China's Eastern Airports Group.

Under the agreement, the two would explore ways of starting direct flights to destinations in China, with Nanjing top of the list.

Nanjing is 300 kilometres up the Yangtze river from China's business capital, Shanghai. It's also a historic centre ripe for tourism.

Mr Byron said the agreement "created a practical pathway to progress future aviation and economic links".

"For us, international connections are about more than flights. They open Canberra to the world and bring the world closer to Canberra."

The two groups would also share knowledge on how to make airports run better.

Canberra Airport Chief Executive Officer Stephen Byron and Eastern Airports Group Vice-President Fan Hao on Tuesday evening. Picture supplied

The executive from Eastern Airports, Fan Hao, said: "We look forward to working together on direct flight opportunities, route network links and tourism market promotion, while enhancing service quality and operational efficiency for passengers from both places.

"The signing of this Sister Airport Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding is an important achievement of both sides working from a shared vision of development and deepening practical cooperation."

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the agreement "helps lay the groundwork for direct flights between Canberra and Nanjing, while bringing our cities closer together".

Canberra Airport has more international destinations than it had before COVID but passenger numbers remain slightly below pre-pandemic levels.

In 2018, there were seven destinations in Australia and two international destinations, according to the airport. There are currently 11 domestic destinations and three international ones (Fiji, Bali and, from December, Qatar's hub in Doha).

The big loss was Singapore Airlines which flew to and from Wellington and Singapore, with Canberra as the middle stop, but Canberra Airport had hopes of starting direct flights to Auckland with Air New Zealand.

The number of passengers going through Canberra Airport is just short of the three million it was before the pandemic.