JERUSALEM, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The number of passengers passing through Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport, on flights from China to Israel and vice versa, rose in the first quarter of 2019 by 30.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018, the Israel Airports Authority (IAA) reported on Monday.
According to the IAA report, 122,162 passengers flew between the two nations in the first quarter of 2019, compared with 93,772 in the same period last year.
Last March, there were 47,519 passengers on flights between Israel and China, an increase of 25.6 percent compared with 37,842 in March 2018.
Of the passengers flying between Israel and China in both directions, 39,191 flew with China's Hainan Airlines in the first quarter, up 36.3 percent from the same period last year (28,747 passengers).
In March, 14,695 passengers traveled in the route with Hainan Airlines, up 25.9 percent from March 2018 (11,676 passengers).
A total of 4.49 million passengers of international flights passed through Ben Gurion Airport in the first quarter, an increase of 5.58 percent compared to the same period last year.
In March, about 1.69 million passengers passed at the airport, a decrease of 0.77 percent compared to March 2018.