Qantas has recommenced daily flights from Sydney to Beijing, eight years after scrapping the route because of the global financial crisis, as the airline seeks to lift its share of the lucrative Chinese travel market.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said there was strong demand from Chinese holiday makers and the corporate market.
"This is the eleventh-largest corporate market for Qantas. This is a market that the business community has been calling out for some time," Mr Joyce told reporters at Sydney Airport on Wednesday.
Several airlines including Air China, China Southern Airlines and Air New Zealand already operate between Sydney and Beijing, although some routes include stopovers.
Beijing, which has 21 million residents, is Qantas' third destination in China after Shanghai and Hong Kong. Qantas now has its largest presence in China since commencing its first flight to Hong Kong in 1949.
"We are seeing a Chinese tourism boom and we know that this route will bring a lot of new tourists into this country," Mr Joyce said.
In 2016, 1.2 million Chinese visitors came to Australia, up 23 per cent from a year earlier, Gareth Evans, the boss of Qantas' international operations, told reporters.
"They spent nearly $9 billion while they were here - that's growth of 28 per cent on the previous year. Pretty much one in every $4 spent by oversees visitors is spent by Chinese tourists, and that is going to grow," Mr Evans said.
Mr Evans said customer demand has been strong since Qantas announced its Beijing service on October 13.
"We are in the peak of Chinese New Year, and the loads on the inaugural flight and first period are extremely strong in the high 80s (percentages) and above," he said.
