Etihad Airways, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will start flying to Beijing on March 30, making it the third Gulf carrier coming to China. While not quite, as yet, competing with Emirates in the luxury stakes it is a very pleasant and well run airline. The writer has flown it several times in economy and was very satisfied.

The airline will fly four times a week connecting Beijing and Abu Dhabi. Beijing will be Etihad’s eighth destination in its rapidly expanding flight network in the Asia-Pacific region.

Etihad will join Dubai-based Emirates Airlines and Doha-based Qatar Airways to provide Chinese travelers with access not only to the Middle East, but to Europe and Africa as well. The theory they are working on is that airport hubs in the Gulf area are growing into the world’s major air travel junctions.

This is not essentially true. One of the problems that these airlines have is convincing travelers that they have well equipped air travel junctions. Many business travelers simply will not make that connection.

James Hogan, Etihad’s chief executive,’There is a huge appetite from business and leisure travelers for flights to Beijing, especially ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games. Our forward bookings are already ahead of our expectations.’
He also said Etihad is looking to increase its frequency to daily flights to Beijing and will fly to Shanghai as well in the near future.

The UAE is home to nearly 200,000 Chinese and more than 2,000 Chinese companies.
Source: China Daily

China’s Hainan Airlines will launch direct flights between Beijing and Seattle from June 9 this year. It is the first time Chinese airliners have used the new China-U.S. air transport rights since China and the United States reached an agreement on revising the 2004 protocol on civil aviation last July.

The new air route has been approved by the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) and the Department of Transportation of the United States.

Four flights are scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday every week.

The flight will leave Beijing at 16:20 and arrive in Seattle at 12:00 local time. They will leave Seattle at 14:00 and arrive in Beijing at 16:35 the next day.

The one-way flight will last for about 11 hours. Airbus A330-200s will be used, offering 36 business class and 186 economy class seats.

Hainan Airlines said it will offer a low price for the tickets at RMB5,960 (about $839) for a round-trip.

Established in 1993, Hainan Airlines is one of the four biggest Chinese airlines.
Source: China View

Malaysia’s low-cost carrier, AirAsia X has begun operating flights five days a week between Kuala Lumpur and Hangzhou in east China.

The flight is from Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s low- cost carrier terminal. At the other end, Hangzhou, the capital of east China’s Zhejiang province, is located about two hours from Shanghai by bus.

The New Straits Times reported AirAsia X is offering passengers as low as $60 for a one-way travel between Kuala Lumpur and Hangzhou.

The airline has already sold 10,000 seats, valued at over $1.5 million for travel in February and March possibly because of its extra low price promotion which it is currently running.

The use of secondary airports provided AirAsia X with the impetus to select Hangzhou airport, where it can serve not only the 6 million residents of Hangzhou and 80 million in its Zhejiang province, but also serve as a secondary airport to key cities such as Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan, each with convenient ground transportation links from Hangzhou.

AirAsia X hopes to expand its network to cover destinations which are more than four hours in flight duration from Kuala Lumpur, offering daily point-to-point frequencies to popular destinations in China.
Source: East Day

According to provincial transport bureau sources East China’s Jiangsu Province has serious plans about expanding air routes to and from the area.

Pan Yonghe, the transport bureau director, said the plan is to open more than 40 air routes and carry 13 million passengers in 2008. 30 of the air routes will be linked to domestic cities, with the rest overseas.

To deal with this increase in passengers the province will spend RMB400 million (about $53.3 million) in building a new airport in Huai’an City which should be finished this year , and in expanding three others, including the Nanjing Lukou International Airport.

Are the figures quoted likely?

Last year, the province’s airports handled 10.76 million passengers. That is an increase of 30.3% over 2006 so, yes, it is very likely.

Since 1978, Jiangsu has been a hot spot for economic development, and is now one of China’s most prosperous provinces.
Source: Window of China

The Rhapsody of the Seas has just sailed from Kaohsiung harbor and out towards Hong Kong. That fact is nothing out of the ordinary. Such cruise liners frequently stop at Taiwan’s biggest commercial port. What was unusual was the cruise carried an unprecedented boatload of mainland Chinese tourists

The authorities in Kaohsiung were the first to admit that the tour party, which numbered only 668, was not enormous, nor was its expected impact on the local economy. But it was symbolic of change: the beachhead in a lucrative capital invasion for which the business leaders of Taiwan have been preparing for years.

If, as expected, the KMT under Ma Ying-jiu regains the Taiwan presidency next month, then there is expected to be a speed-up of the opening of economic ties between Taiwan and the mainland. Mainland tourism into Taiwan will be one of the most significant events.

There is huge pent-up demand for mainlanders to visit the ‘Precious Isle’, and they increasingly have big money to spend on eating out, medical care, and general tourist pursuits.

This is desperately important for the airlines of Taiwan. There are four of them and they are all bleeding money.

Taiwan’s overcrowded air passenger market began showing severe signs of financial strain this week when Far Eastern Air Transport, the island’s largest domestic carrier, admitted that a US$4.8m cheque for fuel had bounced.

Although the company obtained a one-month extension for the payment, the incident suggests the island’s aviation industry, which has been losing money for years, is operating in unsustainable conditions.

The airlines are caught by the ban on air transport between Taiwan and the mainland.

If the restrictions were to be lifted the airlines would become profitable and the whole of the economy would receive a boost. That is why the 668 tourists on the Rhapsody of the Seas are so important.
Source: Times Online