NOTE: THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE BOHOL CHRONICLE’S SUNDAY PRINT EDITION.

The much-awaited return of Chinese tourists is starting to arrive with chartered flights from China arriving at the Bohol Panglao International Airport.

The maiden flight from Chengdu, China touched down at the BPIA at 3:10 a.m. on Saturday bringing some 150 tourists on board the Royal Air flight.  The same airline company brought Chinese passengers late last year from Kunming, China, according to BPIA Manager Angelo Ybanez.

The biggest chunk of arriving tourists are Koreans due to the five daily direct flights bringing  750 Koreans everyday with Jeju Air maintaining three flights, two from Incheon and one from Busan. Royal Air and Air Busan are having one flight daily from Incheon.

The airport manager told the Chronicle there are 121 flights arriving weekly, 82 domestic and 39 international flights.

Two other airline companies, GinAir and T-Way, signified their interest to bring tourists here, Ybanez said.

The 82 domestic flights per week include 10 flights daily from Manila (4 Cebu Pacific, 3 Philippine Airlines and 3 AirAsia. An estimated 1,500 passengers from Manila are arriving daily.

The other domestic flights are 7 weekly from Davao (4 PAL, 3 Cebu Pacific) and three weekly flights of AirSwift from El Nido, Palawan.