Where have all the passengers gone?

China’s airline industry will most likely end up in the red in 2008 as it confronts a slowing domestic economy and the prospects of a global recession according to industry executives and analysts.

Flag carrier Air China and Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines have both warned  they would post losses for the first nine months of the year, blaming high fuel costs and the weak economy.

A sharp slowdown in the appreciation of the yuan since mid-July is also set to undermine earnings in the second half of the year.

Business was also hurt by the devastating Sichuan earthquake in southwestern China in May, as well as travel restrictions and stepped-up airport safety checks that deterred air travel before and during the Beijing Olympics in August, which dealt a particularly severe blow to Beijing-based Air China.
Source: CargoExpress Asia

Hongdu JL15

A clash of generations: the key question in advanced jet trainers is whether new designs should now take over, thereby providing a quantum leap in angle-of-attack, specific excess power and possibly Mach number.

One basic jet trainer with a large potential domestic market is the Hongdu/Pac JL-8 or (export designation) K-8, which was jointly developed by China and Pakistan and first flew in 1990. Pakistan may eventually acquire up to 100 K-8s.

China’s Avic-II group is believed to have sold at least 226 K-8s to more than ten air forces.

Hongdu JL9

China’s Mach 1.6 Guizhou/Avic-I JL-9 (alternative appellation) FFC-2000 is a derivative of the MiG-21UTI. It first flew in December 2003 and manufacture of a pre-series batch reportedly began in May 2007.

It is competing with the more modern Hongdu/Avic-II JL-15, which was designed with assistance from Russian company Yakovlev and resembles the Russian Yak-130. The JL-15 first flew in March 2006.
A global view of this complex issue is provided HERE.
Source: Pakistan Defence

Aviation regulators in eastern China have told airlines not to let pilots quit or change jobs before the end of the Beijing Olympics.

State-backed carriers such as China Eastern Airlines face a worsening shortage of pilots due to a boom in air travel and poaching by private-sector airlines that offer higher wages.

The source said, ‘The CAAC summoned all Shanghai-based carriers well before the Olympics and asked them to rein in their pilots and ensure air traffic safety during the Olympics.
‘No job movement by pilots will be allowed before the end of the Games and no courts in Shanghai will rule on pilot-related issues.’

A CAAC spokesman in Beijing said he had no direct knowledge of the matter.

Pilots in China typically enter into lifetime employment contracts with airlines and require approval to resign from their jobs, often paying hefty compensation to cover training costs.
Source: AirWise

In China, if quit your job as an airline pilot, you could end up owing your former employer more than $102,000.

China’s carriers are struggling to hold onto their crews as demand for air travel creates opportunities for pilots worldwide.

Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, China’s largest carriers, have taken to enforcing lifetime crew contracts.

A Chinese government regulation issued in May of 2006 designed to prevent bidding wars allow airlines to demand compensation for lost staff. Chen Feng, chairman of Grand China Air, said, ‘Everyone should follow the rules. If someone insists on leaving, he should pay the price.’

The situation has drawn attention from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations, which views the practice as unrelated to reality.
Source: AV Web

The Falcon-03, China’s self-developed supersonic jet trainer, has made its first flight in Nanchang, the capital city of East China’s Jiangxi Province.

The jet trainer is intended for basic flight training and testing new flight tactics.

China Central Television reported that the advanced training plane L-15, dubbed
Falcon-03, combines many state-of-the-art technologies.

The aircraft can be used for basic flight training or testing new flying tactics. It is designed for training pilots of J-10 and J-11 planes.

The goal is to mass produce the plane as soon as possible.

Source: English People’s Daily Online and China.org.cn

The first A320 Full Flight Simulator (FFS) in the Southwest China area has passed acceptance inspection of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The CAAC evaluated the performance of the A320 FFS at the Flight Training Center of the Training Department of Air China Southwest Branch. The full-flight simulator, with a value amounting to more than RMB150 million, was formally put into operation after the approval of the CAAC.

Air China Southwest Branch currently owns and operates one A320 FFS, one A320 Flight Training Device, and one B737-300 FFS.

The branch airline has established an advanced and all-weather flight training base with an investment of RMB270 million.

The addition of the A320 FSS advances the airline’s level of flight training for the west plateau air route into a new stage. The great advantage of a simulator is that it can be worked pretty much around the clock. China has a great need for pilots. One way of helping ease that need is to get a lot more simulators into action so that pilots can train up rapidly. Especially in the new co-operative cockpit drills.
Source: China Civil Aviation

China’s airlines flew 185 million passengers last year, up 34% from two years earlier. That’s about one-quarter of U.S. passenger traffic. Chinese carriers are buying hundreds of new aircraft and strugglingto find pilots.

Tian Baohua, president of the Beijing-based Civil Aviation Management Institute of China said, ‘The current situation is, you need all the pilots to fly to meet the demand.’

The typical captain of a state-owned airline such as China Eastern makes about $45,000 a year and co-pilots half that. By Chinese standards, that’s good money. But comparable aviators at China’s private airlines can earn at least 50% more. Not an excuse but it should be mentioned.

But the problem is only partly pay. Many pilots say their biggest complaint is a punishing work schedule.
Under Chinese regulations, airlines are supposed to give pilots two consecutive days of rest a week. But pilots say managers routinely work them six days a week and deny them other time off, which they argue leads to fatigue and raising safety concerns.

In most other countries the airline management responsible for such action would end up in durance vile.

A 35-year-old China Eastern captain surnamed Wu said, ‘In one seven-month period, I had not even one successive 48 hours off.’

That is totally inexcusable and, if proved true, the management responsible deserves severe disciplinary action. For they are playing with people’s safety in the air and ultimately with their lives.

The pilot concerned recently tendered his resignation out of frustration about his own schedule.

China Eastern, one of the nation’s big three carriers, along with Air China and China Southern, declined to comment.

You can understand that. To admit they operate under those conditions would be to say they were putting passengers lives at risk.

Approximately 200 pilots, including about 70 at China Eastern, have taken steps to end labor contracts with their employers. That’s a fraction of the more than 10,000 pilots in China, but many others would consider quitting or changing carriers if they could afford it.

Most signed lifetime contracts with airlines, which traditionally have footed the bill for pilot school and training. That can run to $100,000 per person.

Reluctant to let their investments go, airlines are demanding that pilots pay as much as $1 million to leave.

Analysts fault airlines and the government for letting things get out of hand.

Plainly something must be done. And done very quickly. Even if it means cutting back on flights.
Source: Baltimore Sun

China Eastern Airlines, the nation’s third-largest carrier, said it may lose RMB405 million ($58 million) of sales this year after being ordered to scrap flights that were disrupted by a labor dispute.

The Shanghai-based airline said in a statement to the city’s stock exchange that two routes in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan will be halted May 4. The number of its flights on six Yunnan routes were cut by between two and six daily.

The government took away routes from the carrier after its pilots aborted flights to protest working conditions. This will do nothing to add to their popularity with the management.

The pilots were able to take such cavalier action because the country is facing a shortage of pilots which will only increase.

Yu Jianjun, an analyst at Huatai Securities Co. in Nanjing said, ‘Aggressive fleet expansion is the reason for all these problems. The nation’s civil aviation industry is running at high risk and debts because everyone is regarding market share as first priority.”

China Eastern’s routes in the southern province will be given to four rivals including Air China.

Board Secretary Luo Zhuping said in a Shanghai interview the airline will seek government permission to resume as soon as possible the routes that were taken away after pilots aborted flights to protest working conditions.

The country’s passenger numbers may increase 14% this year, helped by leisure travel and demand for flights to attend the Beijing Olympic Games.

According to the General Administration of Civil Aviation China’s airlines may fly 210 million passengers in 2008.
Source: Bloomberg

China Eastern Airlines saw its share price sink 6.8% after the Civil Aviation Administration announced it was fining the company for an incident in which its pilots intentionally disrupted flights, inconveniencing hundreds of passengers.

‘This incident exposed existing weaknesses in our management and taught us a deep lesson,’ the airline said in a statement released after the aviation regulator announced it was fining the company RMB1.5 million ($214,300) for the disruptions.

The Shanghai-based airline earlier said that 21 flights on March 31 in southwestern China’s Yunnan province were intentionally disrupted by pilots who either turned back midway through their flights or landed them and then took off again without letting passengers disembark.

The pilots were reportedly disgruntled over contract and work conditions in a country that bans unauthorized labor organizing.

Aviation regulators announced the fine, and the suspension of some of China Eastern’s flights in Yunnan, after an investigation.

Having been involved in this sort of nonsense in another country the writer has a comment to make. Pilots wrongly are treated as if they, and they alone, manage the aircraft.

This should not be the case.

It is an essential that the management of the aircraft be a team effort — the second pilot is not just along for the ride — and this is now being reflected in the way the flight simulators are set up.

The pilot is God ethos has to change.

The next point is that there just are not enough pilots so they see themselves in a special bargaining position. The answer is more and more simulators and more and more pilots. Flying a modern plane is not a great skill and an unflappable manner is of greater value than a high intelligence.

The use of the term ‘captain’ should be abandoned. They are the pilot of the plane in the same way as a bus driver is the driver of a bus and elevating them to semi-God status always brings trouble. As Qantas in Australia found to its cost. And eventually to the deep distress of a large number of pilots. Who are no longer captains.
Source: Associated Press

Shenzhen Airlines, is installing a machine from Mechtronix with the snazzy and easy-to-remember name of B737-NG FFS X(TM). Not something that rolls easily off the tongue.

Mechtronix, claims it is the fastest growing and third leading manufacturer of flight training equipment in the world which is, not in truth, a major claim as there are much less than a dozen, probably closer to half that.

The equipment is currently being delivered with plans to install and qualify with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) for training set to later this month the airline’s facility in Shenzhen.

The demand for pilots in China far out-strips the supply and airlines are forced, as it were, to grow their own.

Li Kun, President of Shenzhen Airlines is alleged to have said, ‘We selected the Mechtronix NZFT(TM) FFS X(TM) at Shenzhen for its growing global success serving other organizations and regulators where it has demonstrated proven quality, reliability and economic affordability.’

There is no way he actually said that. It is a prime example of PR-speak which does not relate in any way to the way that human beings converse.

The great attraction of the NZFT(TM) FFS X(TM), which is made in Montreal, although it has a long, mystifying and pretty stupid name, costs about half a typical flight simulator offering the same level of training.

The press release says, ‘The NZFT(TM) FFS X(TM) provides the highest level of fidelity and can easily be upgraded to a ZFT(TM) FFS X(TM).’

For which relief, much thanks.

Shenzhen Airlines, an airline company specializing in air passenger, cargo and mail transport, was founded in November 1992 and started service on September 17 1993. Currently it maintains 50 passenger aircraft (Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s) and four Boeing 747 cargo aircraft.
Source: CNW Group