The inaugural ceremony for the first direct flight between Tianjin and Belgrade was held at Binhai International Airport on Dec 11.

Serbian Ambassador to China Maya Stefanovic attended the ceremony and boarded the flight with a VIP boarding pass presented by Luan Jianzhang, director of the Tianjin Foreign Affairs Office, to return to Serbia.

The regular weekly flights by Air Serbia will leave Belgrade on Fridays, and the return trips will depart from Tianjin on Sundays, the airport said.

The new flights will seat up to 240 passengers on an Airbus A330-200, the largest aircraft of its kind in the Air Serbia fleet.

Serbia is not only an important country in Central and Eastern Europe, but one of the countries actively involved in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2020 and 2021, medical materials, including raw materials for COVID-19 vaccines, were delivered by Air Serbia from Tianjin airport to the southeastern European country.