San Francisco route adds wings to Wuhan's air hub dream

The outbound flight is scheduled to take off from Wuhan Tianhe at 9:30 am, with a stopover at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, arriving in San Francisco at 9:30 am.

The return flight will depart San Francisco at 12:00 pm, arriving in Wuhan at 8:00 pm the next day, according to China Eastern.

"The route will significantly cut costs and time flying from Wuhan to San Francisco, which will benefit frequent passengers like me," said Ye Luxiang, a Wuhan-based machine dealer who flies at least once every month between the two cities.

In 2006, the Civil Aviation Administration of China drafted policies to support the development of Wuhan as an aviation hub, and the city has become a pilot in the country's effort to reform its air transport sector since then.

An expansion program at Tianhe Airport will start in June this year.

By 2020, the annual passenger flows at the airport will be 35 million passenger trips with cargo flow of 440,000 metric tons, triple the current capacity, according to Hubei Airports.

Wang Wen in Beijing and Li Bo in Wuhan contributed to this story