London's Heathrow Airport said it is launching its fourth direct flight service to China, with Beijing Capital Airlines operating three flights a week to the eastern city of Qingdao.

The new service will use an Airbus 330 aircraft and brings to four the number of Chinese cities served by Heathrow flights – the others are Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

"This new route will offer more convenient and comfortable travel services to citizens in both countries than any previous experience flying from Heathrow to Qingdao. It will be a starting point for us to continually increase the UK's transportation capacity and further expand the UK tourism market," Xu Jun, chief executive of the Chinese carrier said in a statement.

John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow, said "In the future the UJK's ability to trade in the world will rely on direct access to new, expanding markets like these."

Beijing Capital is a subsidiary of Hainan Airlines, which last year launched weekly flights from the British midland city of Birmingham to Beijing and Hangzhou.

Hainan Airlines is competing with China's three biggest carriers, Air China, China Eastern and China Southern.

The new route, which will start this summer, is part of a deal struck between UK and Chinese aviation authorities on an increase in the number of services between the two countries last year.

Aviation analysts quoted by Advance, a UK-based aviation industry trade group, said the new route would provide an extra 70,000 seats a year and 4,000 tons of cargo space to Shandong Province, one of China's economic powerhouses.

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