Lehman Brothers Private Equity Partners has led the fundraising of nearly $10 million for Chinese travel search engine Qunar.com, in its first deal in China’s consumer Internet sector. A spokesman for Qunar.com declined to comment.

Qunar — which sort of sounds like the Chinese for ‘Where are you going?’ — provides pricing information for travel services. It was founded in 2005 and is China’s third largest travel search engine firm. Illustrated is chief executive and co-founder, Fritz Demopoulos.

China’s online travel services sector is dominated by Ctrip.com and eLong in which U.S. online travel giant Expedia has a majority stake.

Qunar, which makes most of its income from advertising fees, has agreements with Hilton Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels and Air China. The companies provide pricing and availability information to Qunar, which, in turn, leads customers directly to their Web sites for booking.

Analsys is of the opinion that China’s online travel industry is poised to take off because authorities are asking airlines and travel agencies to offer electronic air tickets instead of paper ones by the end of 2007.
Source: Reuters

HNA Group’s Grand China Air, destined to be the country’s fourth-largest commercial carrier, is scheduled to be launched on Nov. 29 in Haikou, capital of Hainan Province.

Development Holding holds 40.65% of GCA with an investment of RMB1.5 billion while HNA’s Hainan Airlines invested RMB900 million in a 24.08% stake. Other investors include Starstep, Yangtze River Investment, Pan American Aviation Holdings, Qiye Industrial Investment, Union Trans-Atlantic and Perfect Star Investment.

To pave the way for GCA’s launch, Chen Feng.Chen resigned as Hainan Airlines chairman to become chairman of the new company. GCA will be the controlling stakeholder in Hainan and under Chinese regulations the chairman of a company that is the controlling stakeholder of a listed company cannot also chair the listed company.

GCA will merge Xinhua Airlines, Changan Airlines and Shanxi Airlines into one entity. HNA currently holds 60% of Xinhua, 93.75% of Shanxi and 81.16% of Changan. GCA will aim to purchase the remaining outstanding shares of those carriers ‘very soon.’

Chen Feng said the new entity plans to be listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. He said, ‘Hainan Airlines aims to solve its high debt ratio by reorganizing to launch Grand China Air and to list in Hong Kong, as the debt ratio would negatively impact raising funds for fleet expansion.’

No, the illustration does not show the new Grand China Air. Think of it as a generic inflight illustration.
Source: ATW Online

Queensland business, tourism, investment and aviation bodies have launched a campaign to attract direct air services between mainland China and Brisbane.

The move comes as the airline China Eastern is about to begin a trial of Brisbane-Shanghai services that will end in February.

Note that all of the states in Australia compete viciously for the tourism dollar. The rivalry is especially marked between Queensland and Sydney. Queensland is not happy that the bulk of tourists go to Sydney at least as a first stop. And a fair percentage never gets past that.

So six Queensland tourist groups have formed the China Aviation Action Group.

Chairman Jim Carden, of the Brisbane Airport Corporation, said success of the China Eastern service was vital to the long-term future of direct services to Queensland. His group hoped to increase awareness among business and tourism stakeholders in both markets of the need for direct non-stop air services.

He said the China market was growing by about 20% a year and there had been 150,000 visitors to Queensland last year.

But a lack of direct flights meant travelers were forced to endure stop-overs at cities such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney. (The word ‘endure’ comes fom the announcement. Whether it is correct in the context of those three amazing cities is another question.)

Jim Carden said, ‘There is a huge opportunity for both Australian and Chinese airlines to service the Queensland market.

‘With the opportunities that have arisen with the resources boom, the sustained growth in the Chinese economy, the attractiveness of Australia as a destination and the Beijing Olympics, we are convinced that the benefits will begin to flow for airlines willing to take on direct services to Brisbane.’
Source: News.com.au

China Southern Airlines has become the first Chinese carrier to join one of the three major global airline alliances. It has become the 11th full member of SkyTeam which is a worldwide system with 16,400 daily flights and approximately 428 million annual passengers.

Liu Shaoyong, chairman of China Southern, said, ‘SkyTeam is known for its unrivaled global connectivity, and as a member, we can better serve our customers, particularly as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaches.’

Leo van Wijk, chairman of SkyTeam Governing Board, welcomed the airline and said this brought an opportunity to open special ‘alliance lounges’ in Beijing and Shanghai, as it has done in London’s Heathrow Airport.

This writer, having used this lounge, is less that overwhelmed. It is not in the race with, say, the BA/Qantas lounge at the same terminal.

On top of all SkyTeam benefits, China Southern has designated November 15 as the Alliance Day and is offering a complimentary ticket for any citizen of SkyTeam member countries born on November 15 and who flew on China Southern yesterday.

That does narrow down the number of likely winners somewhat.

SkyTeam is the second largest airline alliance in the world — behind Star Alliance — partnering fourteen carriers from four continents. The benefits are basically the use of lounges and the fact that frequent flyer points from airlines often but not always, are interchangeable.

We are proudly told that in 2005, SkyTeam was the world’s best airline alliance, according to the readers of Global Traveler Magazine. There are so many of these awards made by so many magazines that pretty much they have lost credibility.

The airlines in this alliance are not all equal in world ranking — Aeroméxico, Air France, Delta Air Lines, Korean Air, CSA Czech Airlines, Alitalia, Continental Airlines, KLM, Northwest Airlines, Aeroflot. Associate members are Middle East Airlines, Air Europa, Copa Airlines, Kenya Airways

It is just possible that China Airlines and Malaysia Airlines may join in the near future. Being a member of SkyTeam may be seen as a passenger benefit. Having inflight crew like those shown in our illustration probably has a more immediate effect on sales.

Air China will launch direct flight from Beijing to Pyongyang in January.

Not that this is essentially a political comment but Pyongyang is the capital city of North Korea.

It will be much quicker than going by rail. The current regular service Beijing to Pyongyang takes about 25 hours and 25 minutes and, if you are seriously railway mad, you can then connect for a journey to Moscow which takes six days.

Sticking to the far quicker new flight schedule the departure time of flight CA121 at Beijing’s Capital International Airport is scheduled at 2:00 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The arrival time in Pyongyang is 4:45 p.m. The returning flight CA122 will leave Pyongyang at 5:45 p.m. on the same dates, and will arrive in Beijing at 6:30 p.m.

The new route will be operated by Boeing 737 aircraft. Zhang Lan, vice president of Air China, said, ‘The new route will offer convenience for the exchanges and cooperation between China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in culture, education and technology.’

He also said it provides a convenient option for passengers from Europe, the United States and Japan to travel to Pyongyang.

Which, in a sense, is a political statement in that it indicates that North Korea may be going to welcome, if only in a limited sense as in just toe the airport, Westerners.