Air Macao, the flag-ship air carrier in the special administrative region of Macao, said on Monday that it will launch a new air route to Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

The Macao-Hangzhou route, whose first flight is scheduled for Friday, will offer a service of 19 flights a week, the company said.

It also announced that the company will launch three more new air routes in April to Changsha, Guangzhou and Guiyang, in South and Southwest China.

Air Macao, which launched its first commercial flight in 1995, counts mainly on semi-direct flights between the Chinese mainland and the Taiwan Province.

The airline logged a record operating revenue of 2.4 billion patacas (US$300 million) in 2005, when it handled 2.1 million passengers and 150,000 tons of cargo, serving 18 destinations across Asia.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2006)