A new same-day air cargo route will start from Wuhan at the end of May, flying to Chengdu and Hong Kong and then returning to Wuhan. The service will operate four times a week on a B737 plane with a capacity of 14 tons.

In a separate development, Wuhan resumed a river container shuttle service at the end of March from Yangluo to Yangshan in Shanghai, taking just five days. This means that cargo from Wuhan to Europe will take 31 days rather than 35 days.

Previously, the shuttle service between Waigaoqiao and Yangshan was a major headache for shippers as it was regarded as unreliable and unpredictable. The Wuhan-Yangshan shuttle service started a couple of years ago but did not survive because there was only one vessel and very few customers. Now the local government is subsidising three vessels to provide a regular service in the hope that the customer base will grow to a critical mass.