...is from Beijing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7610139.stm

"A tourist industry expedition to China could lead to charter aircraft flying direct from a city of seven million people into Inverness Airport.

Highlands Loch Ness, which markets the area, sent a party to a major tourist event in the city of Shenyang, north of Beijing.

They said they were delighted with the reaction they got a top-level meetings.

They now want to investigate the possibility of international flights to tap into a market of "huge potential". "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverness_Airport

With a 6,000 foot runway.

This should be fun.

Yep

How to get a 744 or 777 into Inverness!

Huge market ? Yes.

But it will be hard pressed for the thousands of Chinese from those cities to get proper UK visitors' visas first. And when they do, do you think they want to come to Inverness first? LOL. How about, London, Paris, .. and then maybe Inverness!

Having just been through that airport over the weekend, it will be fun to watch the airport try to handle anything larger than a 757 even, much less a wide bodied flight.

I think when the airport/city can handle direct flights from Europe first, then maybe North America followed by Asia overall before China and please, why Shenyang when Beijing has a larger tourist market than a few times that of Shenyang.

Me thinks them Highlands head honchos have been smoking too much of the odd stuff lately to come up with that kind of assumption!

I was at INV earlier this week. Nice little airport. I very much liked the terminal and viewing opportunities.

Quoting GuyBetsy1 (Reply 3): Huge market ? Yes. But it will be hard pressed for the thousands of Chinese from those cities to get proper UK visitors' visas first. And when they do, do you think they want to come to Inverness first? LOL. How about, London, Paris, .. and then maybe Inverness!

You've summed it all up very nicely there. This is nice talk, but it won't get beyond that.