Privately owned Chinese carrier East Star Airlines said it has placed an order for six Airbus A320 planes for more than RMB3 billion ($404.8 million).

The order will be funded by loans from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

East Star, which made its maiden flight in May 2006, currently operates five single-aisle Airbus A320s connecting the central city of Wuhan with major Chinese cities as well as Hong Kong and Macau.

The six new A320s, scheduled for delivery starting from 2009, will increase the carrier’s fleet size to 28 aircraft. These are single aisle, mid-range aircraft with a sample interior — not East Star — shown in our illustration.

Aeromexico, Mexico’s top airline which was recently privatized, will begin flying to China in March of next year in time for the Olympics.

The Mexican government sold Aeromexico to U.S. bank Citigroup and its Mexican partners in October after a heated bidding war for the carrier which was then deeply in debt.

The flight from Mexico City to Shanghai will connect through the Mexican border city of Tijuana. There is sense in this in that Tijuana is the biggest border crossing point with the United States — it is only 30 miles from San Diego as you might be able to see on our map — handling some 100 million travelers a year. And it has a major international airport.

Thus routing the flight through there makes it possible that it will become a hub for Americans coming to Shanghai. And the flights will be inexpensive.

Shanghai Airlines is a likely focus for further consolidation of Chinese commercial aviation as larger carriers, especially Air China, look for greater access to the country’s biggest city.

An Air China takeover of the second-level carrier would be a big step toward creating the balanced nationwide operator that China still lacks in any of its big-three airlines—China Southern, Air China and China Eastern.

With a domestic network operated by 59 aircraft, Shanghai Airlines has also caught the eye of China Eastern.

In Shanghai’s airports China Eastern serves nearly 40% of travelers.
Shanghai Airlines comes second, with 18%.
Air China, a mere 12%.

Air China needs a stronger presence in southern mainland China, as well as Shanghai, but in that part of the country it already has a foothold, a 25% stake in Shenzhen Airlines.

The airlines of China live in interesting times. Read the quite long and well researched story by clicking on Source.

There has been a query as to why we normally illustrate these stories with cabin crew instead of aircraft. First cabin crew tend to be a damn sight more attractive. Second, our pictures tend to be more vertical than horizontal. Vertical aircraft worry passengers.
Source: Aviation Week

The English phrase for it is a pig’s breakfast.

As reported in these columns the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) has implemented the Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) standard, increasing the flight lanes in the height between 8,400m to 12,500m from the original 7 to 13. This effectively doubles the airspace available.

It provides airline companies more flight route resources (they will be applying for more routes), but also puts a lot of pressure on airports.

Meanwhile, just as this was coming in to play airspace controls disrupted the travel plans of thousands of air passengers traveling to and from Shanghai.

These were controls which appear to have been applied by the General Administration of Civil Aviation (CAAC).

Li Jingao, an official with CAAC East China Air Traffic Management Bureau based in Shanghai. said, ‘The controls will be removed on Sunday.’ And apparently this is the case.

But why were these new controls applied in the first place and what was the reason?

CAAC East China Air Traffic Management Bureau, operating as if it were still in an earlier era, refused to divulge the reason for the imposition of the controls.

All that is known is that it came at the behest of the PLA which controls these matters. At least 40 flights were delayed at Shanghai’s two airports, Pudong and Hongqiao, on Friday, including flights bound for Hong Kong, Harbin, Dalian and Chongqing.

Li Jingao, said, ‘More flights are departing now to make up for the previous delays and this has increased pressure on the airports that are already operating at full capacity.’

More than 150 flights were delayed in Shanghai and about 7,000 passengers were affected during the first two days of the airspace controls.

China Eastern Airlines has opened a new route from the southwestern city of Kunming to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Wang Qian, a spokeswoman for the company in southwest China’s Yunnan Province said there are now three regular flights a week to Cambodia’s capital capital using a CRJ-200 (shown head on in our illustration) with a capacity of 50 passengers.

Flights take off from Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, at 7:15 a.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and arrive in Phnom Penh at 10:40 a.m. local time.

Return flights leave Phnom Penh at 11:30 a.m. local time the same day.

The flights make a stopover in the southern Chinese city of Nanning for 40 minutes.