Passengers at Nanning airport get ready to fly to Bangkok. [Photo/IC]

South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region plans to resume flights to the capital cities of 10 ASEAN countries before the 20th China-ASEAN Expo, which will take place there in September this year.

The announcement was made at a news conference on Aug 3.

In recent years, Guangxi has accelerated its transformation of the Nanning Wuxu International Airport into a gateway and international air cargo hub for ASEAN.

The airport's handling capacity has been continuously enhanced and passenger air routes have gradually resumed. 

Currently, it has resumed seven outbound passenger air routes, including those to Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, with 30 flights operating per week.

Starting this year, the airport has operated 15 international scheduled cargo air routes, reaching 16 cities in 10 ASEAN and South Asian countries. Moreover, the international cargo throughput of the airport doubled for three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022, reaching 73,100 metric tons in 2022. In the first half of this year, volume reached 35,600 tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.5 percent.

In addition, plans are for Guangxi to improve flights to major domestic cities and important node cities on the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, creating a domestic route network that allows passengers to transit from Nanning to ASEAN.