Airline News
Hainan orders 30 B787s on 20% profit growth
March 30th 2015
In a regulatory filing last week, Hainan Airlines, the Mainland’s fourth largest carrier, said it would buy 30 Boeing B787-9 aircraft, valued at $7.7 billion at current list prices, to expand its long-haul fleet from 2021. Read More » At press time, Hainan had taken delivery of nine of ten smaller B787-8s on order from Boeing. Hainan’s newly ordered -9 variants will come from delivery slots once reserved for United Continental Holdings after United last week said it wanted to convert some of its B787 orders to commitments for the B777-300ER, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Following moves from China’s “Big Three” carriers – Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines – Hainan has embarked on rapid international expansion. As such, it will launch services to Boston, San Jose, Seattle and Tel Aviv this year. The airline is in good shape to absorb the associated opening costs as it last week posted a 2.59 billion yuan ($42 million) net profit for the year ended December 31, 2014, which represented a 20% year-on-year increase. Load factor grew 1% to 86.8%. Hainan cautioned, however, that fuel price and currency fluctuations, as well as domestic high-speed railway competition, posed the biggest operational threats in 2015.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has approved Hainan’s application to rebrand its subsidiary, West Air, as a low-cost carrier (LCC) from March 29, together with China Eastern’s wholly owned subsidiary, China United Airlines. In other news, a Hainan B737-800 completed China’s first “sustainable” passenger flight with the aircraft’s tanks filled with a 50:50 blend of fossil-based jet fuel and bio-based jet fuel. In the meantime, Hong Kong’s Dragonair operated its first biofuel-powered Airbus A330-300 service on March 21, on a flight from Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport to Hong Kong.
