The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway with the world’s fastest train journey with a 217 miles per hour average speed, started operation Saturday.

Two passenger trains rolled out the Wuhan Railway Station and Guangzhou North Railway Station at about 9 a.m. and were expected to reach the terminals at 12 a.m., cutting the 664 mile journey to three hours from the previous 10 and a half hours.

The service between Wuhan, a metropolis in central China, and Guangzhou City, a business hub in the southern Guangdong Province, was put into trial operation on Dec. 9, reaching a maximum speed of 245 miles per hour.

Tickets for the service – which also stops at Changsha, capital of Hunan – went on sale at new stations in the three cities last weekend, with prices ranging from $110 for first class to $72 for second class, said a joint document released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Railways.

“High-speed rail has three advantages over air travel: it is more convenient, more punctual and has a better safety record. This could help erode the airlines’ market shares,” said Si Xianmin, chairman of China Southern Airlines, the largest domestic airline by fleet size.

From today’s launch, 38 out of China Southern Airlines’ 160-plus domestic flights will compete with high-speed train links, he said.

A similar service opened on April 1 between Wuhan and Hefei, Anhui province, had already grabbed half of the passengers traveling from Wuhan to Shanghai, said Si.

The Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan link, also opened on April 1, caused sales for China Eastern Airlines’ Beijing to Taiyuan flight to slump 36 percent the following day, while private Spring Airlines reduced its Shanghai to Zhengzhou flights due to competition from the Shanghai bullet trains, Beijing News reported.

To deal with this threat, China Southern Airlines last week unveiled several counter measures, including cutting ticket prices from Wuhan to Guangzhou by almost half for advanced purchases.

The company also signed a deal with airports in Wuhan and Changsha to give priority to flights to Guangzhou to ensure punctuality.

China plans to have high-speed rail services running between 70 percent of key cities by 2020, which would cover more than 80 percent of the airline network.

In 2004, China hailed the completion of the rail line from Guangzhou to Shenzhen, both in Guangdong Province, with a speed of 100 miles per hour. Now the speed has more than doubled within five years, said Xu Fangliang, general engineer in charge of designing the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed line.

The average of high-speed rail ways is 150 miles per hour in Japan, 145 miles per hour in Germany and 172 miles per hour in France, he said.