United Arab Emirates (UAE) low-cost carrier Air Arabia is to become the first budget carrier within the Gulf States to introduce regular scheduled flights into China. A new three times weekly link between its Sharjah International Airport base and Urumqi, the largest city in Western China, will commence on February 10, 2015.

The confirmation of the landmark link ends over a year of speculation about the service after Gu Zhongqin, president of Xinjiang Airport Group, revealed in December 2013 that the airport authority was in discussions with the budget carrier to introduce the link, around a 4 hour and a half to five hour sector.

“The Chinese aviation sector has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years and we are delighted to be the first low-cost carrier from the MENA region to play an important role in this incredible story,” said Adel A Ali, group chief executive officer, Air Arabia. “We have had our eye on the Chinese market for some time and are now ready to begin regular services to one of the world’s great economies."

Located in the Xinjiang district of China, Urumqi is a modern industrial city of 3.3 million people and a major transportation hub in the region. It has been described as the gateway to the vast region of Xinjiang, which offers some of the best bazaars, hiking, outdoor sports and natural beauty in the country, as well as being the location of large oil and natural gas reserves.

This could mark the first steps in a bigger journey into the Chinese market for Air Arabia and its CEO suggests that further expansion could be on the cards should this route prove to be successful.

“With a large population, strong economy and vibrant cultural scene, Urumqi represents an exciting first Chinese destination for us and we hope to add more routes over time. This is a major move for Air Arabia and an important step in strengthening connectivity between the rapidly growing economies of the Middle East and Asia,” he said.

The city is served by Diwopu International Airport which will well linked internally within China and to destinations across Central Asia and particularly the former Soviet States within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). However, links outside these regions are limited to China Southern Airlines’ links to Istanbul, Turkey; Moscow, Russia and Tehran, Iran.

The Chinese carrier, the largest operator from Urumqi’s Diwopu International Airport, also added links between the city and the UAE with the introduction of regular flights to Dubai International Airport from September 2014. It had previously offered flights between Urumqi and Sharjah but the regular link was suspended in summer 2008, albeit infrequent scheduled charter flights were flown between 2012 and 2014.

In our analysis, below, we look in greater detail at bi-directional O&D passenger flows between Urumqi and the United Arab Emirates. The data shows how the operation of non-stop services has helped stimulate the market in the past.