China will be the largest market for new commercial airplanes in the next 20 years, according to Boeing’s latest market forecast. Boeing said China will acquire 3,400 new planes worth US$340 billion in that time. In addition, China will continue to lead all domestic air travel markets with a passenger-kilometer growth rate of 8.8%.

Following the anticipated surge in passenger traffic for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the China domestic market will grow nearly fivefold by 2026 to become slightly larger than today’s intra-North American market.

With the continued high rate of growth for China air travel and air cargo markets, China’s fleet will nearly quadruple to 4,460 aircraft by the end of the forecast period in 2026.

Single-aisle airplanes such as the Boeing 737 will be the largest category with total new airplane deliveries reaching 2,200. Intermediate twin-aisles such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (mocked-up interior seen here) and 777 will see approximately 750 airplane deliveries. When combined, the single-aisle and intermediate twin-aisle market will make up 90% of China’s total delivery dollars.
Source: China Civil Aviation Report

More people travel. More people buy travel tickets. Travel agencies, especially those who know how to work the Internet properly, make more money. China’s top online travel agent, Ctrip.com, made what has been called an ‘unexpectedly strong quarterly profit’ — probably the only people who did not expect it were the analysts — driven by rising travel demand.

Third-quarter profit almost doubled to $15 million, or 21 cents per American Depositary Share, from 12 cents a year earlier. Revenues rose to a record $46 million, as hotel reservations, flight bookings and package tours all posted strong growth.

Ctrip shares have risen about 84% this year. Ctrip said it was looking at opportunities presented by the 2008 Beijing Olympics to begin catering to inbound traffic, but added such business would be negligible next year.

CFO Jane Sun told an analyst conference, ‘The financial impact from the Olympics next year will not be significant.’

Revenue was split roughly in half between the mainland’s first tier and second tier cities. However, revenue growth from second-tier cities was 40-45%, almost double the 20-30% growth in the main cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

The company is also facing pressure from airlines that increasingly sell directly to customers. This is true all over the world. The airlines, no matter what they say, love cutting out any intermediary. To overcome this, CTrip, and all the other players, must offer one stop shopping which is cheaper than the Internet savvy user could assemble from three or four sites.

China Eastern Airlines is now flying operations which will eventually link Indian cities like Mumbai and Bangalore to China.

Ginger Jiang Wei, the Indian representative for China Eastern, said, ‘We are eyeing the Indian metros where the passenger airline traffic is growing at a fast pace. Mumbai and Bangalore figure prominently on our radar. Apart from the business delegations, there has also been a significant growth in Indian tourists to China.’

However, he was unable to say when services from Mumbai and Bangalore to Shanghai might be restored.

Chin Eastern, which had flight operations from Mumbai, in 2005 discontinued the service. Now it is running three non-stop flights per week between Kolkata and Kunming.

Ginger Jiang Wei said, ‘We chose Kolkata owing to its geographical proximity to Kunming. Kunming is a known tourist hub and we are looking to cash in on the growth of the tourism traffic from India to China. China is now emerging as an alternative destination to the South-East Asian countries for the Indian travelers’.

The tourism traffic from India to all airlines is growing at the rate of around 35-40% a year.
Source: Business Standard

According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, China’s aviation industry posted a total passenger volume of 45.813 million in the second quarter of the year, an increase of 17.5% compared to the same period last year.

Passenger volume increased by 0.3 percentage point, total traffic by 1.6 percentage points and cargo and mail by 3.7 percentage points compared to the first quarter data.
Total traffic throughput reached 8.77 billion ton-km, up by 19.8%, and cargo and mail volume totaled 0.969 million tons, higher by 17% on year-on-year.
International flights total traffic volume was 3.05 billion ton-km, an increase of 26.6% on a year-on-year basis.
Total passengers reached 4.121 million, up by 20% and cargo and mail reached 0.27 million tons, higher by 29.2 percent.
The average scheduled flight occupancy rate is 74.7%, and the scheduled flight load factor 65.9%, both up by 2 percentage points compared to data in the first quarter.

In truth those figure are something of a worry. They should be higher. This is the year the American airlines came in a flood and there will be a lot more in the next five years.

True, the Olympic Games will give next year’s figures a big boost and Expo 2010 comes after that. But the aviation industry in China simply has to lift its game, especially in the area of passenger service, if it is to hang on to a decent percentage of overseas flights. The food must always be as good as shown in our illustration, which is the Dynasty Service on China Airlines.
Source: China Aviation Civil Report

More travelers from China are thinking of going overseas as a change to the normal domestic trip during the National Day holiday — thanks to the rising renminbi.

The value of the renminbi against the US dollar has surged nearly 10% since July 2005, when the central bank unpegged the currency from the greenback and linked it to a basket of currencies.

Most travel agencies have said the number of tourists applying for overseas trips during the National Day holiday is higher than the same period last year.

Lin Kang at China International Travel Service said, ‘We have seen an increase of 10-15% in outbound tourism.’

He said tour products to Europe, South Korea, Japan and some islands such as Maldives and Saipan are popular as is Hong Kong.

Last year, 34 million Chinese traveled overseas, making them the sixth largest group of outbound tourists worldwide. In the first half, outbound tourism grew 14% year on year, the China National Tourism Administration said earlier this month. It estimated that 37.4 million Chinese will travel overseas this year.
Source: China Daily