Approval for airline merger

1 March 2002

The State Council has approved a plan to create three large Chinese airlines capable of competing internationally. Under the plan, the nine carriers directly under the control of the Civil Air Administration of China CAAC) will be merged into three groups.

Three additional group companies will be set up to trade jet fuel, supply aviation equipment and run aviation computer systems. The CAAC also plans to hand over control of about 120 Chinese airports to their city governments and retain ownership only of the airports in Beijing and Lhasa.