At 7:30 a.m. on July 10th, the arrival hall of Nanjing Lukou International Airport resonated with the announcement of flight MU846's landing. Aboard the inaugural non-stop return flight from Paris, 245 passengers touched down in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, marking the successful launch of the city's new direct intercontinental route.

Emmanuel, a French traveler, expressed his excitement about taking this very first flight, "It's like being part of history of Nanjing! Normally, other flights would take me 25 hours to get here, but now, (with the direct flight), it's done in 12 hours." 

Ethan has been to Nanjing before, but he had to transfer via Shanghai. When mentioning Nanjing's famous tourist attractions, he said, "I know there's the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, right? And also Nanjing University, which is very well known internationally."

Nanjing greeted each passenger with sincere hospitality. Wang Zhuoxian, a French-speaking tour guide, presented a package of creative cultural products and souvenirs from Nanjing to Emma, a French passenger and first-time visitor to the city. 

To meet passengers' daily needs in China, mobile phone services were also thoughtfully arranged. According to Li Jia, Director of the Foreign Exchange and Cooperation Division at the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, they launched a value-added SIM card package tailored for inbound visitors, offering them the same convenience as Chinese citizens in areas such as payment, transportation, accomodation booking, and tourist attractions reservation.

China continues to update its visa-free policies and is becoming increasingly open. The country now offers unilateral visa-free entry to citizens of 47 countries, including France, who can now enter and stay in China for up to 30 days without a visa. Visa-free policies and direct flights bring more than tourists, but also, various stories. 

Among the passengers, the reporter met Portuguese businessmen who came to visit their partner company in Nanjing for automobile cooperation; a sister from Lyon, who were here to attend her brother's international wedding; and Sophie, a French Sinologist who came to attend the 7th International Sinologists Conference on Translating Chinese Literature, which will be held later in July.

Su Wei, Deputy Director of the Land and Air Ports Division at Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, told the reporter, "This year, we've been actively growing our airline network. For passenger flights, we've launched new intercontinental routes to places like Milan and Paris. For cargo, we've started a service to Mexico, and just today, we added a new route to Incheon, South Korea." 

With the constant comings and goings, what awaits Nanjing and Jiangsu is more people-to-people connections with the world.