Chinese Domestic Developments

This weekend marks the mass change of airlines’ schedules as we transit from the Northern Winter to the Northern Summer. This will see a number of network changes across the globe, but it will be most evident in China with a raft of new routes launches planned. The Chinese domestic market was worth an estimated $30 billion in flight revenues in 2010, and from April more than 32,000 flights will be offered every week with almost five million seats.

Source: Flightbase (April 14 – 20, 2011)

The market is dominated by China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern Airlines which together account for more than 60 per cent of the weekly flights within the country. They provide links on some of the most densely operated routes in the country (highlighted in the table below). But, it is some of the smaller airlines that are providing important region-to-region connections or links into hub airports that are helping the local air transport industry develop at such a rapid rate.

Source: Flightbase (April 14 – 20, 2011)

These include the likes of Beijing Capital Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Hainan Airlines and Sichuan Airlines which have all revealed new domestic route plans for the summer in the past couple of weeks.

Beijing Capital Airlines, part of the NA Group, will next week add three new routes from Haikou, the capital city of the country’s Hainan province. The new flights from Meilan International Airport, located 15.5 miles (25km) from the city, will serve Fuzhou, Guilin, Hohhet, Jinan and Wuhan. Only three of these destinations are currently served directly from Haikou; Guilin and Hohhot by Deer Air and Wuhan by China Southern Airlines. Beijing Capital will also offer a new link from Sanya, located on the Coast of Hainan Island and the southernmost city in China, to Shijiazhuang, in Hebei province and Harbin in Heilongjiang Province.

Xiaman Airlines, a relatively small carrier when domestic schedules are analysed, is introducing seven new domestic routes during the Northern Summer schedules, mainly focusing on Xinjiang province, as well as Sichuan and Yunnan. From May 1 it will introduce a daily Xiamen – Chongqing – Lijiang rotation, to be followed from July 6 by Changsha – Taiyuan – Urumqi; Fuzhou – Chengdu – Jiuzhaigou; Fuzhou – Zhengzhou – Urumqi; Hangzhou – Jinan – Urumqi; Xiamen – Chengdu – Jiuzhaigou and Xiamen – Wuhan – Urumqi flights.

Meanwhile, Hainan Airlines, also part of the HNA Group, is to expand its presence at Hefei, the capital and largest city of Anhui Province in Eastern China. During the Northern Summer schedules it will add new domestic connections to Harbin, Shenzhen, Taiyuan and Xiamen from March 26. Finally, Sichuan Airlines is to launch three new domestic routes this summer from Chongqing. It will offer daily services to Changzhou, Hohhot and Mianyang from March 27, at the same time it will add a second daily flight to Lhasa in Tibet.