From port to port: Shenzhen connection

It was 13 hours and 19 minutes. That is the time the Airbus A330, with registration B-1017, took to connect Shenzhen and El Prat for the first time with a regular commercial flight. With this Shenzhen Airlines link, Barcelona now has a second direct destination with China. A few weeks ago, the flight to Beijing, a route operated by China Airlines, the majority shareholder of this company based at Bao'an International Airport, was resumed. This is a very modern aeronautical facility that opened in the autumn of 1991. Planes began landing there two years before the start of operations of the company that now connects the capital of Catalonia with a city considered one of China's special economic zones.

These zones differ from the rest of the People's Republic in that the Beijing government applies more free-market-oriented economic policies there, they have more flexibility in governmental matters, and they use a less directed economic management system, clearly designed to be more attractive to local and foreign companies.

This was one of the points recalled by the mayor of Shenzhen in a video broadcast during the institutional presentation of the flight at the airport's T1 business center. Another video, starring the mayor of Barcelona, was broadcast before the flight's departure at the Chinese airport. Jaume Collboni was present at El Prat and recalled his first trip to that region near Hong Kong. He did so as part of an economic mission from Barcelona in 2016. According to the mayor, it was during that Catalan expedition to China that the idea of establishing direct air links between the two cities began to be considered.

Both are cities closely linked to maritime activity. If Barcelona's is a reference port in the Mediterranean and Europe, Shenzhen's is the fastest-growing in the world. In fact, one cannot speak of a port as such, but rather of the different facilities managed by the same entity and distributed along the 260 kilometers of this metropolis's coast. After Shanghai and Beijing, it is the third most populated in China. Activities on its docks, mainly focused on container ship operations, have propelled it in recent years to the fourth position of facilities with the highest traffic in the world, only surpassed by Shanghai, Singapore, and Ningbo-Zhoushan, also in China, which it will soon overtake.

Shenzhen and Barcelona are two cities closely linked to maritime activity. If Barcelona's is a reference port in the Mediterranean and Europe, Shenzhen's is the fastest growing in the world.

Despite its size, as it has a fleet of 226 aircraft, the company that debuted in Barcelona this Monday is largely unknown outside of China and in a few Asian countries, as the bulk of its commercial operation of 223 routes and some 800 flights a day focuses on domestic destinations. International Asian destinations are scarce and only go to Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Thailand, in addition to Malaysia and Singapore. Until this week, its flights to Europe were limited to London-Heathrow, the main airport in the United Kingdom.

Due to the characteristics of its network, its fleet is based on medium-range aircraft such as the A320 and Boeing 737 and only has half a dozen Airbus A330s. The latter is the model it uses for some routes where it needs greater capacity, in addition to reaching London and now Barcelona twice a week, a frequency that will increase to three flights starting in February 2024.

The airline uses an Airbus A330 for routes where it needs greater capacity, such as its routes to London and now Barcelona

On behalf of the Generalitat government, Marc Sanglas intervened; on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, its vice president, Toni Fitó, and on behalf of the State government, its delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto. All of them were preceded by Eva Valenzuela, the new airport director who this Monday debuted as host at the public presentation of the new route. The common denominator of all institutional speeches was the joy for Barcelona's growth with a new line with great transcendence in industrial, commercial and financial terms, in addition to claiming an airport with more weight on the world stage.

Twinning

Currently, Barcelona is twinned with 24 cities around the world. Cities as different as Havana, Istanbul, Valparaíso, San Francisco or Athens are part of this family. Since 2021, Shenzhen is also a sister city of the capital of Catalonia. In November 2021, the then mayor, Ada Colau, and Mayor Qin Weizhong, signed the agreement telematically. The twinning, which lasts four years, promotes aspects such as collaboration in the fields of trade, investments, biotechnology, information technologies, environmental sustainability and renewable energies. The document endorsed by both mayoralties elevated the collaboration agreements signed in 2002 and the subsequent one in 2012, focused on culture, economy and transport.

Now a transport, air transport, in the form of an Airbus A330 with 313 seats ---36 in Business class and the rest, 277, in economy class--- will unite these two sister cities in the best possible way: non-stop.