Lucky Air is among the members of the HNA Group’s U-FLY low-cost alliance and its rise into the intercontinental market could represent the arrival of a new breed of Chinese low-cost, long-haul operations. The airline has requested rights from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to introduce flights from its Yunnan province base to both Los Angeles and Moscow.
The airline had originally planned to introduce the daily rotation from May 16, 2015 but is now seeking to delay the start of the new service until July 15, 2015.
According to Ding Shaoxiang, vice governor of Yunnan province government, the route successes of China Eastern Airlines linking Kunming to Paris Charles De Gaulle last year and Vancouver International Airport from this year should be followed by a new direct link to Australia in 2016 serving either Melbourne or Sydney.
In its nine years of operation as a HNA Aviation group subsidiary, Lucky Air has developed its network to cover more than 40 destinations across 21 Chinese provinces with a fleet of approaching 25 aircraft. It now serves 61 routes and handled 5.67 million passengers last year.
With nearly 80 per cent of the Chinese population and economy within a range circle of about 2,000 km across Central and Eastern regions, congestion will remain a major talking point in China and an issue that will not be easily resolved. Meanwhile, domestic air travel will remain very important for China’s aviation development.
The Philippines is currently modernising and expanding its premier gateway and secondary airports to sustain its international market growth and improve the arrival and departure experience. Increased investment in these airports will drive international tourists and passengers to visit the Philippines.
Hungary is a fast growing tourism market for China, with last year showing a 19 per cent increase of Chinese visitors travelling to Budapest. In fact, estimates suggest a Chinese diaspora of over 40,000 in Hungary and demand or around 90,000 bi-directional passengers per annum.
The airline has already introduced a new cabin uniform, but will now extend this revised look to the livery on its fleet of aircraft, at the same time replacing its long-standing Bird logo with a new symbol highlighting its Chinese origin.
With almost ten years of experience in the aviation business, the carrier, part of the HNA Group and a sister operation to Hainan Airlines and Hong Kong Airlines, has been reinvented to better meet the demands of the local market and enable the group to better compete in the emerging low-cost sector in Hong Kong, a market served by 17 other low-cost carriers.
Potential future non-stop flights to Guangzhou from Birmingham will be possible thanks to an investment by Birmingham Airport to extend its runway to enable longer haul flights. The development was opened in April 2014 by the Prime Minister and was inaugurated by the first Birmingham-Beijing charter service in July 2014.
Vancouver will be the first North American destination to be linked to Kunming, one of China’s premier tourism regions and the new long-haul connection follows the successful introduction last year from Yunnan Province to Europe, via China Eastern to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport.
The current structure of AirAsia Group’s airline activities has not come as a result of choice, but a requirement to enable the low-cost specialist to expand in international markets and overcome rigid local ownership issues. This means that rather than working independently, the carrier must develop joint ventures with local interests in each foreign market.
Speaking to Routesonline on the sidelines of the Routes Asia Strategy Summit, where he was a panellist discussing airport infrastructure and whether countries could keep with the growing demand for air travel, Datuk Badilisham Ghazali, managing director of Malaysia Airports Holdings, said the company doesn’t simply want to grow with airline partners, but to anticipate their requirements ahead of time.
The carrier will offer a twice weekly service on the route from June 4, 2015, adding to its existing flights between Manila and Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Kuwait City, Kuwait and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Cebu Pacific also currently serves Dammam, Saudi Arabia, but that flight will terminate at the end of this month.
Cambodia Airports’ CEO, Emmanuel Menanteau, talks to Joe Bates about booming passenger traffic, customer service and the next phase of infrastructure development.
The tall rock formations seem to make the stones look like petrified tress, hence the name the “Stone Forest”, with some of the limestone formations believed to be over 270 million years old.
Vietnam Airlines will become the first Asian airline to fly the A350 XWB and the second operator in the world. Vietnam Airlines will acquire 14 A350 XWBs, including ten on order from Airbus and four under lease agreements. The carrier will operate its A350 XWB fleet on premium long haul routes, beginning with services between Hanoi and Paris.
Dr Liu succeeds Raymond Benjamin of France, who has held the position for two consecutive terms since 2009. She becomes the first woman ever to be appointed to
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called on Indonesia’s stakeholders to partner in the development of an aviation masterplan based on global standards to ensure that the country is served by an aviation industry performing at its best.
Peter Harbison, executive chairman, CAPA, says growth and turbulence provide excitement – and financial risk – for Asia’s airlines in 2015 in an interview in the latest Routes News magazine.
