Air China announced on Monday that it will add three new flights and restructure the seven existing weekly services between China and Australia from December 3.

The move comes after Air China reported its strongest performance to date over the first nine months of 2007, with services reaching around 90 percent capacity range on its services between Australia and China.

The flag carrier of China and and official airline partner of the Beijing Olympic Games expects the move to expand capacity on its Australian operations by more than 40 percent.

The airline operates daily services between Beijing and Sydney via Shanghai, with three of these services continuing to Melbourne.

The carrier will cut the daily Beijing-Shanghai-Sydney flights to four times weekly and add three weekly non-stop Beijing-Sydney services, operating overnight in both directions.

Combining the service via Shanghai and the new direct flights, and Air China will continue to provide daily services between Beijing and Sydney.

Meanwhile, Melbourne, for the first time, will receive three weekly Beijing-Shanghai-Melbourne direct services, eliminating the need for passengers to travel via Sydney en route to China or beyond.

The Melbourne-Shanghai flights will operate on the same days as the Sydney-Beijing direct flights giving the carrier daily services between Australia and Shanghai.