Not too much should be made of this for in the aviation industry worldwide it is a far too common situation. China may postpone the maiden flight of the ARJ21, or Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st Century, its first passenger jet, by at least four months because of supplier delays.

The flight, scheduled for this month, is now likely to take place in July or even later.

The jet uses parts from Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, Parker Hannifin, United Technologies. and General Electric.

The ARJ21 is the first step in China’s ambition to become a global aircraft maker and capitalize on a domestic market forecast to need as many as 3,400 new planes in the next 20 years.

Chen Jin, vice president of Shanghai-based AVIC I Commercial Aircraft, said ‘We’re still doing assessments, and if the results show that certain things aren’t up to standard, then we may have to delay.’

The ARJ21 will enter a regional-jet market dominated by Bombardier Inc. and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA. The ARJ21 will be priced similarly to the $30 million Embraer 175 jet.

Engineers are still conducting ground tests and experiments on the ARJ21.

Song Yiping, Shanghai-based ARJ21 project manager for Rockwell Collins said, ‘I would guess that some Western-supplied systems may be behind schedule,’ said . ‘There are rumors that one or two suppliers might be delayed.’ Rockwell Collins, which is supplying electronics, is on schedule.

Every component supplier issued a statement saying their deliveries were going to schedule. But as Mandy Rice-Davis famously said, ‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’

Looking ahead, the Chinese government and its aerospace companies AVIC I and AVIC II plan to invest ‘tens of billions of yuan’ in a company to design and build a 150-seat jetliner within the next decade, AVIC II President Zhang Hongbiao said in Beijing.

According to Boeing, China, the world’s second-largest air travel market, may need as many as 3,400 new planes in the next 20 years.
Source: Bloomberg

Hainan Airlines, China’s fourth-largest air carrier, saw its unaudited net profit for 2007 jumped at least 300% from 2006.

In January, the airline estimated the rise in profit at 200% but that was being a tad conservative.

China’s airlines were buoyed last year by booming domestic demand for leisure and business travel, as well as the benefits of a rising yuan. Air China posted a 19% rise in second-half profit.

Hainan Airlines said details of its 2007 results would be published in its annual report, which will come out this weekend.

The airline posted a net profit of RMB181.6 million ($25.64 million) in 2006.
Source: Reuters

A code share pact means that you effectively double the number of places you fly to without increasing your fleet of aircraft. However, it can be a two edged sword as the two players in the code-share need to be nearly equal in terms of passenger service, on time performance and safety.

China Southern Airlines has announced a new code share pact with Malaysia Airline System(MAS).

In making the announcement, China Southern Airlines’ Chairman Liu Shaoyong said, ‘Starting from 27 November 2007, customers of China Southern Airlines and Malaysia Airlines have been enjoying 35 weekly flights between Kuala Lumpur and Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. These seamless connections between the two parties air network enable China Southern Airlines’ customers flying into Kuala Lumpur to connect to all domestic points served by Malaysia Airlines.

At the same time, Malaysia Airlines’ customers can travel on China Southern flights to more than 90 destinations in China from Guangzhou and 38 from Beijing.

‘This close cooperation has opened new opportunities in the code-share arrangement between China and Malaysia. We firmly believe that such a strategic partnership will offer travelers more choices and seamless destinations served by the two airlines.’

China Southern Airlines operates a fleet of 330 Airbus and Boeing jet aircraft. In 2007, China Southern Airlines transported nearly 57 million passengers, ranked at ninth position worldwide. There are illustrations of hostesses from both airlines to show it is a fair meeting of equals.
Source: Welt Online

Leading business people in Taiwan have voiced the hope that the Taiwan authorities can realize ‘three direct links’ as soon as possible when Ma Ying-jeou, seen in the center of our illustration, takes office as the new leader of the region.

Ma, the candidate representing Taiwan’s Kuomintang who won the election, has promised to expand business ties and reinstate direct transport and postal links with the Chinese mainland.

The ‘three direct links’ refer to direct trade, transport and mail services across the Taiwan Straits.

Chi Mei Corporation President Ho Jau-yang said the Taiwan authorities should let enterprises in Taiwan embrace the business opportunities in the mainland. Chairman of the E United Group Lin I-Shou said Taiwan should let mainland tourists travel to Taiwan as soon as possible.
Source: China View

Jet Airways can fly from Mumbai to San Francisco via Shanghai. India and China have now allowed airlines of both sides to fly to ‘beyond points’. Now airlines of both sides can fly on to a maximum of two cities each in three regions.

India has asked for three regions for its airlines to fly to and from with a halt in China. They are Canada-US; Australia-New Zealand and Asia. China has asked for — Africa, Middle-East (including Gulf) and Europe — as the three regions for its carriers.

A statement issued by the aviation ministry said, ‘However, the intermediate points and beyond points and the exercise of traffic rights to/from these points shall be agreed upon by the two aeronautical authorities of the two countries.’

‘It has been agreed that the designated airlines of India may operate beyond China to San Francisco with full fifth freedom traffic rights. The Chinese side shall be allowed to nominate a beyond point in India with full fifth freedom traffic rights, at their discretion at a later date. Airlines of each country shall be entitled to exercise beyond fifth freedom traffic rights on not more than 14 frequencies to all the beyond points put together.’

The key to this is the phrase fifth freedom which is bandied around in the aviation industry — often by people who do not know even roughly what they are talking about.

For the record, he said pontifically, there are nine freedoms which affect aviation.

First freedom is the right to overfly a country without landing. Some countries in the past have refused this which has led to some very strange and long routings. But that was during the Cold War. Now it is almost universal, although most countries require prior notification before an overflight and some countries refuse some countries in moments of pique.
Second freedom is the right to stop in a country for refueling or maintenance on the way to another, without transferring passengers or cargo. In the early days this was important and Shannon Airport was used by almost all transatlantic flights to refuel. (It is also the reason Irish coffee was invented by Joseph Sheridan in the 1940s was to wake up passengers who were waiting in Shannon airport — a damned miserable place at the time — while the plane was being refuelled. These rights are still widely used by air cargo carriers.
Third freedom which, to help matters along, was known for a time as the First Commercial Freedom. This is the right to carry passengers or cargo from one’s own country to another. So when Air China uplifts a load of local passengers and goods and flies them to Bangkok — as an example — it is exercising its third freedom rights.
Fourth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from another country to one’s own and is, as it were, the reverse half of the third freedom. They are normally negotiated simultaneously.
Fifth freedom is where the fun starts. This is the right to carry passengers from one’s own country to a second country, and from that country to a third country. An example of this could be China Airlines flights starting in Beijing, flying to Bangkok and then on to, say, Dubai. And tickets can be sold on any or all sectors.
This is complex so there are two sub-categories in existence:

Beyond Fifth Freedom allows the right to carry passengers from the second country to the third country.
Intermediate Fifth Freedom allows the right to carry passengers from the third to the second country.

You might think none of this important but to an airline it is what life is about. All the fuss about open skies and what have you is caused by the exercising of Fifth Freedom rights. Contentious to say so but pretty much all the problems in this area have been cause by airlines from the United States.

Sixth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from a second country to a third country by stopping in one’s own country. In Asia this is very common as it is on the route from Europe to Australia and beyond. Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines and other airlines in Asia use sixth-freedom rights extensively on this route. In the same way British Airways will tickets passenger from America to Asia via London. And so on.
Seventh freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo between two foreign countries without continuing service to one’s own country. You simply would never give seventh freedom rights away unless you did not have a carrier of your own. The exception is Europe where there is an EU open sky policy. And now the United Kingdom and Singapore have agreed to unlimited seventh freedom rights.
Eighth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo within a foreign country with continuing service to or from one’s own country. This is extremely rare and sometimes goes under the name of Cabotage. Yes, it does exist in the European Union and between Australia and New Zealand but you are scratching for other examples.
Ninth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo within a foreign country without continuing service to or from one’s own country whih is also known as Stand Alone Cabotage. It does exist. Example is Malaysia’s Air Asia selling domestic flights inside Thailand. The EU agreements also allow ninth freedom flights.

All of which may sound a tad boring and technical but, in a sense, it is what has allowed the airline industry to develop and, in another sense, prevented its full development.
Source: SiloBreaker and research.