China’s newest panda diplomats Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are en route to Atlanta

Two giant pandas on loan from the Chinese government as part of Beijing’s long tradition of “panda diplomacy” have landed in Atlanta Sunday and are headed to the city’s zoo, according to CNN’s team at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The pandas arrived on a FedEx flight Sunday after flying from Chengdu, in southwestern China. A spokesperson for FedEx earlier told CNN the company “has a long history of safely transporting giant pandas.” The arrival of the two pandas — a male named Ping Ping and a female named Fu Shuang — at Zoo Atlanta comes with great fanfare, especially since the bears are a rarity in US zoos. In 2024, Zoo Atlanta returned four pandas who had lived at the zoo back to China, marking the end of a 25-year agreement between the zoo and China. The pandas departed Chengdu, in southwestern China, at 2:55 a.m.