(dpa) - China's state-owned flagship carrier, Air China, on Monday began the first scheduled flights by a foreign airline to North Korea.
An Air China Boeing 737 from Beijing landed at Sunan Airport in the North Korean capital as the first of three scheduled flights per week between the communist-ruled neighbours, the Chinese government's official Xinhua news agency reported from Pyongyang.
Flight CA121 will leave Beijing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon and return from Pyongyang as CA122 later the same day, the agency said.
North Korea's state ariline, Koryo, operates nearly all air routes to and from the politically isolated country, with just a few flights each week to Asian cities including Beijing, Shenyang in northeastern China, Macao and Bangkok.