A new air route has opened over China that will reduce flying times between Europe and cities in the east and south of the country. IATA says the new route, designated B208, was implemented on April and around 475 flights a week expected to use it.

The association says flights from Europe to Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong will no longer have to be channeled through Beijing, saving 60 nautical miles (111km) per flight.

IATA director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said, ‘While being introduced to deal with Olympic-related congestion, this is the latest in a series of major permanent improvements to China’s air traffic management infrastructure.’

China introduced a new route in 2006, dubbed Y-1, that cuts flight times between Europe and China by 30 minutes per round-trip. Also last year, China introduced reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) procedures that helped to increase airspace capacity.
Source: Flight

Taiwan President-elect Ma Ying-jeou (shown here) has tentatively set July 4 for launching weekend charter flights with the mainland as part of his plan to improve ties.

The National Policy Foundation, a think tank of Ma’s Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, said in a recent report that it had completed the direct weekend charter plan.

The service would begin taking passengers from the mainland for the weekend and carrying them back on Monday noon.

Chen Shih-yi, a foundation spokesman, said Ma had instructed that the service be started from July 4, and be extended to Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan for vacation after Beijing and Taipei work out an agreement.

Ma, a mainland-friendly politician who won a landslide victory in last month’s presidential election, has vowed to further open up the island to the mainland and forge direct transport link in 2009 after he assumes office on May 20.

Chen said Taiwan will open its international airports in Taoyuan in the north, Taichung in central Taiwan and Kaohsiung in the south for charter services. Flight points from the mainland will include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen.
Source: TopNews.in

Air Asia will launch flights from Kuala Lumpur to Hainan in May. The low-cost carrier already has four routes linking Kuala Lumpur to China: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Macao.

Established in 2001, the Kuala Lumpur-based airline has now carried more than 46 million passengers.

To keep fares low, the airline does not provide free food or beverages on board.

The uniforms of the hostesses raised complaints in the Malay parliament. A Wanita Umno delegate from Kelantan said the uniforms of the female cabin crew of budget airline AirAsia are too short and ’show too much skin.’

Kubang Kerian delegate Datuk Zaleha Hussin said the uniform was an embarrassment to women.

She called on the Government to compel the carrier to change the uniform of the stewardesses, which she felt was too revealing.
Source: China View

Do you know the way to San Jose? Well, yes. Go to San Francisco airport and instead of turning right out of the airport turn left. It is further that to San Francisco city, but not that much further. And it truly does not much have going for it as a town except a neat name and a catchy tune.

But San Jose has an international airport and it is not going to get direct right to fly to China. Not happy.

By 2009, it’s likely that travelers will be able to reach some of China’s major cities — Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou — non-stop from any of several U.S. hubs, including San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit and Newark.

San Jose, and a nearby and also overshadowed airport, Oakland, are not on the list.

Michael Roach airline consultant of San Francisco-based Roach and Sbarra said, ‘The problem that San Jose faces, that Oakland faces, is that when people think of the Bay Area, they think of San Francisco, the big enchilada. It’s difficult to get anyone to pay attention to the other two airports.’

So there are a fair number of flights from San Francisco to Beijing and Shanghai and United is expected to start daily non-stop service from San Francisco to Guangzhou in the spring.

Cathay Pacific Airways will add a second daily non-stop between San Francisco and Hong Kong starting Oct. 18, allowing fliers to connect through its subsidiary Dragonair which flies to 19 cities in China.

Michael Roach said, ‘The air travel market is expanding in the same way our commercial relationship with China is expanding. If the relationship continues to expand in the next ten years as it has in the last ten, we’ll see a lot more travel.

‘It’s reasonable to expect a hiccup at some point, but no one sees that happening at the moment.’

China’s National Tourism Administration projects that 129 million people will visit China this year, an increase of 5 million over 2006.

But they will not be flying direct from San Jose.

Tony Tyler, chief executive of Cathay Pacific who was in San Francisco on his way to take delivery of a Boeing 777-300, said, ‘The market is not totally untapped, but there’s still enormous growth potential. The number of passengers passing through China was up 17% last year, so the market is growing fast.

‘It’s a sad fact of life that the bigger airports tend to work better because they act as hubs as well as points of origin. San Francisco has a range of connections to cities all over the place and can draw traffic both ways.

‘If you’re going to operate a maximum of four flights a day into this area, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to split your efforts.’

Currently, San Jose offers international service only to Mexico.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

United Airlines will soon be the first U.S. carrier to offer daily, nonstop service between San Francisco and Guangzhou. This brings to six the number of daily nonstop flights United provides to China, including daily nonstop flights to Beijing from San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C.; and daily nonstop flights to Shanghai from Chicago and San Francisco. United is the first U.S. carrier to provide nonstop service to Guangzhou.

The San Francisco to Guangzhou service will begin in spring of 2008.

Some facts which make it an intelligent route decision:

California has more China-bound passengers than any other state; more than one-third of all U.S. travelers to China are from California.
California alone accounts for over 57% of all U.S. traffic to Guangzhou.
San Francisco metropolitan area has more traffic to Guangzhou than any other metropolitan area without nonstop service to Guangzhou.

United Airlines operates more than 3,600 flights a day to more than 200 U.S. domestic and international destinations. United is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides connections for our customers to 855 destinations in 155 countries worldwide.
Source: CNN: Money http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQTU18925092007-1.htm