It seems very late in the day for this to happen but the story is that Air China, the country’s sole designated flag carrier, may try to derail the plan of Singapore Airlines to buy a stake in China Eastern Airlines. Citigroup suggests it might do this to protect its market position.

Air China’s parent, which holds 11% of China Eastern’s Hong Kong-listed shares, may try to rally support from other shareholders to block the Singapore Airlines deal. The deal needs to receive approval from two-thirds of all minority investors.

Air China may want to combine with China Eastern, as the smaller airline has a 50% share of Shanghai’s air travel market.

China Eastern agreed to sell a combined 24% stake to Singapore Airlines and Temasek Holdings Pte on September 2.

Singapore Airlines and parent Temasek agreed to pay about $918 million to acquire Hong Kong-listed shares of China Eastern at 49 US cents apiece.

It will be a pity if the deal does not go through. China’s airlines desperately need to lift their game when it comes to passenger service. The leader in this area is undoubtedly Singapore Airlines. It could transform China Eastern Airlines and other China airlines would be forced to follow suit. One of the major changes would be in the cabin crew who are, being charitable, not up to internationally accepted standards.
Source: Shanghai Daily

China’s civil aviation authority said it has approved 27 new international routes to Europe and America.
The routes will be opened in the next two years. In addition, there will be 206 more flights per week on the existing routes to Europe and America, said the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC).

The new routes will be run by Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Hainan Airlines, which have introduced aircraft such as Boeing B787 and Airbus A380.
Source: China View

The facts are easy. Sina.com, China’s largest portal with over 100 million monthly unique visitors, together with Qunar.com, China’s largest travel search engine with over 8 million monthly unique visitors is going to launch “Free Talk Travel”. This will be a blog publishing platform that will allow Chinese travelers for the first time to share their travel experiences in an innovative and interactive way.

Kevin Zhu, Life Channel Editor of Sina.com said, although it sounds like flack-speak, ‘We feel that Qunar will provide us the right travel industry expertise and consumer insights to co-develop this exciting new project. Both the blog platform and travel e-publishing are sure to be well-received by our users.’

Denise Peng, VP of Product Development at Qunar.com, ‘Sina is the right partner for us as we expand our service offering into the realm of travel 2.0. We’re looking forward to an outstanding cooperation!’

Well, yes. It will work but there is a tremendous potential problem which every similar site has already faced. Airlines get their staff to write in as innocent users lauding the airline to the skies. This is so common that most savvy users ignore all the positive comments and just look for the negative ones.

Keeping such a blog clear of flackery is well nigh impossible. An airline wants favorable mentions, the PR asks a friend and then another friend. And so it goes on.

An intelligent reading can spot when this has happened because the reports are over-enthusiastic. But it is almost impossible to police totally. No doubt this blog will be a success. But, equally, no doubt it will contain a fair amount of lying puffery about airlines and other travel facilities.

(The illustration comes from Sina.com and, no, there is no indication which airline it might concern. This is called diplomacy. And the picture is nicer than another aircraft.)
Source: CNN:Money

A most amazing article by Bradley Perrett in Aviation Week shines a new and very well-informed new light on the ARJ21, China’s new aircraft. Well worth clicking on the link Source below to read the full text. Bradley Perrett gets a gold star, a go-home-early mark and a Chocolate Freddo. What follows is very much a precis.

The ARJ21 regional jet is shaping up as China’s equivalent of the Airbus A300 — a project that in its time seemed merely interesting but later was recognized as the origin of a major product range.

The ARJ21-700, which is very much a niche aircraft designed for hot and high airports but this is not the key point about this project.

Above all, the ARJ21 program is important as the occasion in which Chinese industry is learning to develop a commercial aircraft to full Western standards and with its own intellectual property rights, to coordinate with many subcontractors, to gain certification from the U.S. FAA, to establish an international marketing operation, and — crucially — to prove that it will support aircraft in service.

‘Cross the river by feeling the stones,’ said former leader Deng Xiaoping.

The ARJ21 project is a line of big stones that will lead Chinese industry far across the river.

Rollout is scheduled for late this year, with 14 months of flight testing to begin in March. Chinese type certification should follow in July 2009 and first delivery three months later.

Three production aircraft are to be completed in 2009, 14 in 2010 and 30 in 2011. So the backlog of 71 orders, all from Chinese customers, implies that the plant will be busy until late 2011.

Once the -700 is in service, development will begin on the ARJ21-900, which will have more improvements than just a longer fuselage. The Chinese engineers want to reach out to feel a few more stones.

Boeing’s vice president for China, John Bruns, said, ‘Clearly, with the ARJ program the Chinese are taking a large step forward. It would be naive of us to think that our two companies, Airbus and Boeing, are going to dominate this industry forever.’

The likelihood of an eventual 150-seat ARJ21 derivative has risen over the past year as China has firmed up plans for its second commercial aircraft. Rather than follow up its regional jet with an aircraft in the next standard size category — a standard six-abreast narrow-body — the government has approved what state media are calling a jumbo with more than 150 seats and a takeoff weight of more than 100 metric tons.

That should be a small wide-body—the next line of stones across the river.

The article is superbly well written with great authority and has left one journalist green with envy.
Source: Aviation Week

Speaking at an aeroleasing summit in Beijing, Richard Walker, marketing director for Airbus China, Airbus expects to deliver around 70 new aircraft to mainland Chinese airlines this year. He said, perhaps stating the obvious, that China is one of the firm’s key markets. The European manufacturer delivered 76 new aircraft to China last year, representing 20% of Airbus’ total new deliveries worldwide.

Airbus forecasts China will need over 2,600 passenger aircraft from 2006 to 2025. Single-aisle carriers make up the majority, with an expected 1,900 deliveries, while Airbus forecasts that 620 twin-aisle aircraft will be delivered.

Richard Walker said the company expects to deliver 113 large aircraft over the period, including the A380, shown here taking off from Shanghai, which will be used for long-haul services, as well as on busy domestic routes.

He added that Airbus expects to raise its market share in China to 50% by 2013, from 36% now. Probably Boeing would disagree.

Production will start next year at Airbus’ final assembly plant in Tianjin and Richard Walker said the company expects the facility to produce four aircraft per month by 2011. Airbus also has six sub-assembly plants around China.
Source: Forbes