In late May, LinkGlobal Logistics bought Parchim Airport in Germany and this appeared extremely unusual and, looked at another way, the opening of a new investment chapter in Chinese aviation history.

Chairman of LinkGlobal Logistics Pang Yuliang, the main player, reported the deal for this airport, which has an annual capacity of 180,000 flights and can handle all kinds of civil aircraft.

It did not happen. The Ministry of Commerce has halted the transaction because the deal hasn’t been filed with relevant authorities which prevents LinkGlobal from completing the financial part of the deal.

Pang Yuliang is not making any comment. In China his logistics business currently covers more than 800 cities and extends to some 90 countries worldwide.

When the transaction to buy Parchim Airport was announced, Pang Yuliang said: ‘There will be no need for my fellow-villagers heading towards Germany to transfer in Beijing or Shanghai once a charter flight is organized.’

Pang moved his global logistics business from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to Zhengzhou, and invested RMB300 million ($39.2 million) in 2006 to set up an international logistics center. It provides global sea port, airport logistics, global express, bonded processing, and international trade services.

A banner in front of Pang’s company reads: ‘If you only have a hammer, you always see problems as nails.’

How that applies to the current problem with Parchim Airport is an interesting thought.
Source: China Daily

This is an odd story. LinkGlobal Logistics, a private logistics services provider based in Beijing, has completed an agreement to buy a 100% stake in Germany’s Schwerin-Parchim Airport.

The Zhenzhou Daily, based in the capital city of the central province of Henan, quoted LinkGlobal Logistics founder and chairman Pang Yuliang as saying that the company will pay about RMB1 billion for the airport in Schwerin, which is located between Hamburg and Berlin.

According to the report the logistics firm bought the airport in an auction held earlier this month and won permanent rights to operate it.

LinkGlobal Logistics is now seeking an airport management firm to manage Schwerin-Parchim and expects carriers calling at the airport to include flights from China.

It is said to be the first time a Chinese company has wholly owned a European airport.

Pang Yuliang, chairman of the board of LinkGlobal Logistics, outbid ten other global competitors, including FedEx, Hamburg Airport, and Emirates Airline, in an international tender.

Pang Yuliang told Economic Daily News: ‘China’s vast logistics market has attracted Germany which expects to boost its economy through cooperation with Chinese enterprises.

‘The demand of Chinese enterprises for logistic services to Europe is also huge. If we have our own airport in Europe, transport costs will be reduced greatly.’

The purchase will help Pang Yuliang further expand the logistics network of LinkGlobal, a Beijing-based company. It has a network covering more than 200 cities in China and about 90 countries worldwide.

How will Pang Yuliang pay the RMB1 billion? He told Economic Daily News that a Nigerian bank will vouch for his company, and no domestic banks are involved.
Source: People’s Daily Online

China’s aviation authorities have promised to make greater efforts during this summer’s thunderstorm season (or, indeed, at any other time) to ease air travel delays. This will be a good thing as, in the past, there have been serious confrontations at airports between irate travelers and airline staff.

The civil aviation administration said on its Web site that China’s main air traffic control centre has installed new equipment that will be able to alert the main airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou up to 48 hours in advance of storms. This should help airlines rejig their flights and, perhaps, warn passengers. Off-hand, the number of times an airline has called passengers to tell them their planes will be late because of the weather can be counted on one hand. Unlikely to see that changing.

A far, far better option is the one where the authorities improve coordination with the military, which controls almost all of China’s airways, to open temporary routes around storms and ‘reduce the effect on regular flight operations’.

Chinese airports regularly shut down during rain storms, delaying flights for hours and stranding thousands of passengers.
Source: China Daily

China and New Zealand have agreed to amend their air services agreement so that their airlines can establish commercial code-share arrangements.

Annette King, New Zealand’s Minister of Transport, made the announcement after meeting with Yang Yuanyuan, Minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China. She said, ‘Yang and I agreed that China and New Zealand will implement from this month a change to our 1993 air services agreement to facilitate code share arrangements.’

According to official statistics, New Zealand received 114,000 visitors from China in the year to March, a 26% growth year-on-year.

ir New Zealand launched direct Auckland-Shanghai services in November 2006, a ‘milestone’ for the airline and for direct travel between New Zealand and China.

Air New Zealand plans to increase its Auckland-Shanghai services from three to five. Which is excellent news. However, shared codes are not without their problems. A simple example: when the idea of code sharing first started Qantas, the Australian airline, made deals with several other airlines. The result was chaos at the airports.

A traveler would buy a Qantas ticket, check in at a Qantas counter and find that the aircraft ready for boarding was from some other airline. At which point the passenger refused to fly.

Nowadays it is very, very carefully explained to all passengers right from the very first contact that this is a code-share flight and all though it might say Qantas it may very well be Finnair. Not that anyone has anything against Finnair. It is just that most Australians do not see raw herring and vodka as a satisfactory inflight meal. (I lie, I lie. The food on Finnair is, in fact, quite excellent.) Still, a flight from Sydney to Bangkok is often code-shared between Finnair, Air Malta, British Airways and Qantas. And this could give a passenger pause.

Code-sharing can bring benefits but it has to be handled very, very carefully.
Source: China View

A senior official of the regional aviation authority said there could be a third general aviation airport for Shanghai by 2010.

Guo Youhu, vice director of the East China branch of the General Administration of Civil Aviation, said Shanghai should have five to six general aviation airports as an international metropolis. He said this when the branch approved the establishment of the city’s first general aviation company.

He said the existing two general aviation airports can’t fulfill the city’s demands.

The way it works at the moment is Gaodong Airport is China’s first helicopter base for sea rescue and is close to Pudong International Airport (seen above), and Longhua Airport is an emergency landing site for rescue work, police patrols, and fire-fighting operations to the southwest of the city. Another general aviation airport seems like a sound idea.
Source: China Daily

By 2010 there will be six new airports in central China. This according to a senior official with the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC).

The six airports will be built in Bengbu City in east China’s Anhui Province, Yichun in Jiangxi Province, Zhumadian in Henan Province, Yueyang and Hengyang in Hunan Province. The sixth will be located near Mount Jiuhua, a well-known Buddhist holy mountain in Anhui and this is where our illustration was taken.

We are not talking major international airports. These are small airports serving defined communities.

Li Yongqi, from the CAAC’s planning section said airports at six provincial capitals, namely, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Taiyuan, Changsha, Nanchang and Hefei will also be upgraded.

Central regions include Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Shanxi. They have a combined population of 361 million and the central regions are economically less developed as the country’s eastern region. Now, with new airports they have a better chance to develop.
Source: China.org.cn

Germany’s Fraport, which operates Frankfurt Airport, possibly the only airport in the world with a blue movie cinema in the basement, has become one of the shareholders of Xianyang International Airport in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. It now has a 24.5% stake.

Fraport will pay RMB490 million for the stake while the state-owned company China West Airport Group will hold 50.9% of the shares. The other two shareholders are China National Aviation Holding Company with a 24.5% stake and Xi’an Airport Logistics of China West Airport Group.

The Xianyang Airport is the largest in northwest China and handled 9.4 million passengers last year.
Source: English.eastday.com