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

IATA, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has identified five challenges China will face in an air industry which can compete at world levels. These are: efficient air traffic management, environmental sustainability, cost-efficient airport infrastructure, internal cost control and commercial freedoms.

However, note that IATA. almost by definition, is representing all the other commercial airlines (a vocal slab of which is American neatly protected from true competition by Americ’a strange bankruptcy laws) and commercial freedom is something members of IATA have been squabbling about among themselves since it was formed. Basically what most IATA members want is commercial freedom from everyone else, but not for everyone else.

Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO and shown here, at the China Civil Aviation Development Forum in Beijing, said, ‘China has an important role in the industry today, and is a future global leader for air transport. By 2010, the largest single market for aviation will be intra-Asia, accounting for nearly a third of all air travel with China at the centre. China is at a critical moment that is also a great opportunity. And to build a more successful future, China has to avoid the mistakes made in other parts of the world.’

He went on, ‘ While there have been impressive accomplishments in China - IATA-1 was opened last year that cuts 30 minutes off a round trip to Europe, RVSM will be implemented this year — big challenges still remain. The congestion delays in the Golden Triangle can be measured in hours, while the inefficient airspace design in the Pearl River Delta is costing HK$1 million a day with Chinese carriers being the most affected. We need a solution quickly.’

And IATA would like, please, to have the prices of going and coming lowered.

Giovanni Bisignani said, ‘China has some of the highest charges in Asia outside of Japan. With uniform charges for all Chinese airports, they are definitely not cost-related. IATA is working with the government to develop a charges regime that challenges airports on efficiency, provides a reasonable return to investors, and supports a competitive industry.’

The competitive industry would, of course, mainly be members of IATA and, indeed, again he has a point.

Massive landing charges curtail commercial development and China will have to make up its mind of what basis those charges should be made.

He then got to commercial freedom which is a tricky point with every major country in the world and it is pointless trying to blame one country over another.

He said, ‘The recent US-EU open-skies agreement moves the industry in the right direction, but falls short of the fundamental change we need. China’s fast growing economy demands efficient air transport links, and progressive liberalisation has played an important role — opening Hainan as a free port for aviation services, liberalising bilaterals with the US, ASEAN, Japan and Korea. With the aviation industry’s centre of gravity moving East, China has an enormous leadership opportunity to shape policy where the US and EU have failed to do so.’

It may well be he is hoping for too much.
Source: Money Control

At a conference in Beijing speaker after speaker said, ‘We need policy reform.’ They were talking about airspace.

China has a booming civil-aviation industry but is lagging behind in the field of ‘general aviation’ — which means everything besides commercial airliners and military aircraft. General aviation covers crop dusters, corporate jets, single-engine training aircraft and cargo aircraft, among other things.

This is much bigger than you might imagine. Civil aviation — where you get on an airline’s plane and go from Shanghai to, say, Sydney — accounts for most air passengers worldwide. But the most number of flights come from the much over-looked ugly sister — general aviation.

General aviation is important because without it you cannot have other forms of aviation. It allows training of pilots and technicians. It helps to develop infrastructure, a secondary web of small airfields in smaller and remoter cities which, in turn, allows for more efficient point-to-point transport.

Australia is an excellent example of how it works. Yes, the vast majority of passengers go to the major airports. But it is feeder traffic from places like Mudgee which keeps those flights ticking over. (And, incidentally, saved the life of friend of the writer by getting him to a Sydney hospital after a severe heart attack.)

In China general aviation is still a baby. It accounts for less than 1% of the world’s general-aviation fleet.

Comparative figures: 1,000 departures of private aircraft from Beijing’s airports last year, 60,000 from New York, 25,000 from Moscow and over 3,000 from Dubai.

What is the problem? First there is a 21% tax on imported aircraft. That is a problem but, in the scheme of things, relatively minor. The main problem is airspace. Most airspace is under military control with little spare capacity in civilian airspace so getting permission to fly means applying up to five days in advance.

There are very few ‘fixed based operators’ (FBOs), the service centres based in airports that maintain and operate private aircraft.

The government’s plans to promote general aviation are not clear. Mostly it comes down to the military hanging on to control of air space. It is quite plain that it is unwilling to let go, even at low altitudes were there should be no conflict. Eventually, it will have to if China it to continue its path onwards and upwards.
Source: The Economist