Urumqi becoming aviation hub

Efforts to transform Urumqi into an aviation hub have borne fruit since China Southern Airlines increased the number of its flights linking the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region with Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, at the end of May.

The number of the airline's flights from Urumqi Diwopu International Airport between the two cities has risen from two to three per week, further expanding ties between Xinjiang and the Central Asian country.

Li Chengxin, an executive with the Xinjiang branch of China Southern Airlines, said the carrier — one of the country's three major airlines — has ferried nearly 50,000 passengers in its two international flights from Urumqi to Astana and Almaty since the beginning of the year, a year-on-year increase of more than 380 percent.