Hainan Airlines Co., Ltd. initiated non-stop flight service between Chongqing and Rome on April 27, 2015. Codenamed HU7991, the inaugural flight took off from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport at 1:30 am on April 27 Beijing time and landed at Rome’s Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci International Airport at 7:50 am local time. Rome has been added to the roster of Hainan Airlines’ destinations in Europe following Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. As one of the gateway cities to western China, Chongqing now has its first direct flight to Western Europe.
On the afternoon of April 26, Hainan Airlines held a brief inaugural ceremony in Chongqing. When flight HU7991 landed in Rome, airport staff greeted the passengers arriving from China with the traditional practice popular in the aviation sector, of spraying the entire exterior of the aircraft just having completed the maiden voyage of a newly-opened route with water.