DUSHANBE, October 19, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- China Southern Airlines Xinjiang Company (formerly China Xinjiang Airlines, it is a fully owned subsidiary of China Southern Air Holding Company) will launch a once-weekly service from Urumqi, the provincial center of China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), to Dushanbe beginning on October 31, according to the company’s office in Dushanbe.

Boeing-757 and Boeing-737 will be used on this air route and the flight will be operated once a week, on Saturdays, the source said.

Founded in 1985 and based in Urumqi, the provincial center of Xinjiang, China Xinjiang Airlines was owned by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).  In 2003, the airline was acquired by China Southern Airlines, which is headquartered in Baiyun district, Guangzhou, Guangdong.   On December 31, 2006, China Southern Airlines Xinjiang Company successfully completed 52 consecutive years of safe flight operations, setting a new record for safe flight operations in China’s aviation industry.

China Southern Airlines operates domestic, regional and international services.   In 2008, China Southern was the world’s 5th largest airline by passenger carried, Asia’s largest airline in terms of both fleet size and in passenger carried.  It is also the 4th largest in the world in domestic passenger traffic and 6th largest in scheduled domestic passenger-kilometers flown.