Beijing Capital Airlines: A Guide to Routes Between Beijing, Hangzhou and Qingdao

History and positioning

The boldest phase in the airline's history remains 2016-2017, when the HNA group used it to open long-haul links from cities such as Qingdao and Hangzhou to Melbourne, Madrid and Vancouver: an expansion experiment aimed at bypassing China's big traditional hubs. After the financial crisis and HNA's restructuring in 2021, most of those more ambitious routes were cut, and the airline returned to a more conventional profile as a domestic and regional carrier.

The fleet

The fleet is entirely Airbus, with the A320 family (including the A320neo) on the domestic and regional core and a few A330-200/300s left on the surviving long-haul routes, for a total of over 80 aircraft.

Routes and network

The dual hub of Beijing Daxing and Hangzhou, with Qingdao as a focus city, feeds more than 70 destinations among first- and second-tier Chinese cities, plus a scaled-down international network that touches Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and a few surviving long-haul routes.

On board and service

The onboard product is a standard domestic full-service one, with a simple business class on the long-haul A330s: a service described in Chinese-language reviews as adequate rather than distinctive, without the quality peaks of the country's major airlines.

Beijing Capital Airlines is a reasonable choice if you need to transit through Beijing Daxing or Hangzhou to a second-tier Chinese city. It is no longer the right airline if you are after the old long-haul routes to Europe and Oceania that made it famous: many were cut after HNA's restructuring. The practical tip is to check the current list of international destinations before booking, because older travel guides still mention connections that no longer exist today.