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Finnair plans to launch regular flights between Shanghai and Helsinki in September this year, sources close to the Finnish airline company disclosed here Tuesday.

Finnair, amid its stepped-up preparations for the operation of the new air route is expected to open a representative office in Shanghai in early June this year, said the sources.

Finnair will arrange three flights weekly from Shanghai to Helsinki in September, which will be the first direct flight linking Shanghai with northern Europe.

Insiders said the new air route would become a convenient choice for tourists in eastern China to fly to northern Europe.

Insiders also cited rapid economic development in Shanghai and its neighboring areas, the growing number of Chinese students studying abroad, Shanghai's win of the World Expo 2010, and the increasing number of foreign tourists flocking to China as the major factors that draw the attention of foreign airline companies.

Huang Liang, deputy general manager of the Shanghai Foreign Airline Corp. Service Company, said that at present 37 foreign airline firms have set up their offices in Shanghai, which now operates 61 international and regional air routes.

Currently, passengers carried by foreign airlines account for 12.7 percent of the total passengers by air in east China area, up from six percent in 1995, according to statistics from the Eastern China Administration of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC).