Birmingham Airport shows the value of marketing, to deliver the first UK non-London Chinese flights

The UK's Birmingham Airport has won the race to be the first UK non-London airport to host direct flights to and from China.

The services will connect Birmingham and Beijing. They will be operated by China Southern Airlines, and while the modest programme may be charter only and operate over a short summer period, this victory for the UK's seventh largest airport by passenger numbers throws down the gauntlet to other regional airports to match its ambition.

The operation also goes some way to demonstrating that Birmingham's submission to the Airports Commission on future UK airport capacity, in which it perceived a greatly enhanced national role, has both teeth and legs, coming as it does on top of confirmation of other long haul route start ups that coincide with the opening of a runway extension in Apr-2014.