The sector is held by Air China and China Eastern Airlines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
MAD Madrid to PVG Shanghai
Adolfo Suarez Barajas, Spain, to Pudong International, China. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- About once a day
- Great circle
- 10,268 km
- Block, estimated
- 12h 52m
- Door to door
- 19h 37m
What MAD to PVG looks like
The MAD to PVG sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Madrid MAD to Shanghai PVG is an ultra long sector of 10,268 km by great circle, flown nonstop about once a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 10,268 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 12h 52m.
Madrid MAD is a major hub in the network held here, 252 scheduled destinations and 720.9 departures a day. Shanghai PVG has 206 destinations and 786.7 departures a day.
Shanghai runs 7 hours ahead of Madrid in January and 6 hours ahead in July, because the two ends do not change their clocks together.
The pair sits between Asia Pacific and Europe, a corridor where the site already publishes 46 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on MAD to PVG from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAD to PVG | 1.29 | 9 | Air China, China Eastern Airlines |
| PVG to MAD | 0.86 | 6 | China Eastern Airlines |
Two carriers hold the sector, Air China and China Eastern Airlines, which gives a missed departure somewhere to go without leaving the nonstop.
The two directions are not level: MAD to PVG runs about once a day, the return runs 6 times a week, and a round trip has to be planned around the thinner of the two.
Between them the two directions put about 15 departures a week on MAD to PVG, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 12h 52m block time on MAD to PVG. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to MAD | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At MAD before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| MAD to PVG in the air, estimated | 772 min | 17h 22m |
| Formalities at PVG | 90 min | 18h 52m |
| Delivery run in Shanghai | 45 min | 19h 37m |
| Door to door | 1,177 min | 19h 37m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for MAD to PVG is 19h 37m.
A courier who leaves Madrid at 09:00 local is on the ground in Shanghai at about 04:52 local and at the door by 07:07 the following day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Shanghai, nothing leaving Madrid inside a normal working day arrives in time, so this pair is an overnight and a next morning delivery rather than a same day one.
At 19h 37m the mission is past the sixteen hour duty day a single courier is planned against, so it is quoted with a rest at the far end or with a second courier, and never as a turnaround.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 47 of them join MAD to PVG.
| Connecting at | MAD to hub, flights a day | Hub to PVG, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geneva GVA | 9.57 | 1.14 | 10,270 | 14h 41m |
| Vienna VIE | 5 | 0.86 | 10,302 | 14h 47m |
| Brussels BRU | 10.57 | 1 | 10,339 | 14h 48m |
| Venice VCE | 8.14 | 0.86 | 10,331 | 14h 48m |
| Budapest BUD | 3.71 | 1.14 | 10,338 | 14h 50m |
| Copenhagen CPH | 4.57 | 0.86 | 10,335 | 14h 51m |
One nonstop a day means one chance a day, so the connections below are what a consignment that arrives at MAD in the afternoon actually flies on.
47 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Geneva GVA, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through GVA the routing covers 10,270 km against the 10,268 km nonstop track and takes about 14h 41m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 75 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 49m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Vienna VIE at 14h 47m and Brussels BRU at 14h 48m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Shanghai, Shanghai SHA is 45 km away by great circle and carries 60 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Restricted hours at either end
Widely documented operating restrictions, checked 2026-09-07. Exemptions and seasonal variations exist, so confirm with the carrier before relying on any of them.
Madrid MAD, night operations: Operates around the clock. Night departures to the Americas are routine.
Shanghai PVG, night operations: Operates around the clock.
Industry within reach of the two ends
Public manufacturing and research sites whose logistics run through MAD or PVG. Listed as industrial geography, not as customers of anyone.
- Airbus, Getafe and IllescasRear fuselage, tail sections and composite structures. The Spanish sites sit on the same takt as the French and German ones. Logistics through Madrid MAD.
Plan Madrid to Shanghai yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for MAD to PVG in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The MAD airport entry
- The PVG airport entry
- Hand carry into Spain
- Hand carry into China
- The written lane, Abu Dhabi to Madrid
- The written lane, Doha to Madrid
- The written lane, Dubai to Madrid
- The route calculator
More pairs through MAD and PVG: Barcelona to Madrid, Madrid to London, Paris to Madrid, Madrid to Amsterdam, Munich to Madrid, Madrid to Milan, Brussels to Madrid, Boston to Madrid.