Qantas plans to use mainland China as a hub to European and other ports as part of a strategy that will see the airline launch its first non-stop flights to Beijing on Monday.

The carrier has targeted China's fast-growing economy as a major potential market and last year returned to Shanghai after a four-year break.

Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said yesterday it was obvious China would become a through-point to other destinations in the longer term.

He said Qantas already had the rights through China but also needed to secure them at end destinations. These could include destinations in Europe "or closer", he said.

"We have made the first step in that by Hong Kong becoming an intermediate point on the way to London - we're now doing four a week and we go seven a week in April," Mr Borghetti said.

"And in the long term we hope that Shanghai and Beijing will also play an increasing role in that strategy."

The flying kangaroo has tried twice before to launch services to Beijing - in both instances through Shanghai - but was forced to pull out because of poor yields on what were mainly leisure routes out of Australia.

It last serviced the Chinese capital in 1999. However, it is confident conditions are now right for the route and it is predicting services to both major cities will quickly move to daily frequencies.

Mr Borghetti said Qantas was benefiting from improved operating costs by using more fuel-efficient planes.

The granting to Australia of Approved Destination Status had also seen significant growth in leisure traffic from China.

Visitor numbers to Australia from China had grown by 13 per cent to about 330,000 in the past 12 months, while traffic from Australia to China had risen by 32 per cent to about 250,000.

Business traffic was also growing as trade opened up - now accounting for 38 per cent of the Australia-China traffic - and yields were considerably better.

"And also there is an increasing number of Chinese students that are coming to schools and universities," he said.

The airline's three weekly Beijing services will be in addition to four weekly Shanghai flights and 31 services a week to Hong Kong.

Qantas will continue to codeshare with China Eastern on its Shanghai route.