Airline News
China Southern ramps up overseas expansion; China Eastern sells off Joy Air equity
October 9th 2015
Catering to China's outbound tourism boom, China Southern Airlines will accelerate its overseas expansion in its winter schedule, boosting capacity to Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Southeast Asian destinations. Read More » The Guangzhou-based carrier will launch three international services in December, Guangzhou-Sabah on December 1, and Guangzhou-Christchurch and Guangzhou-Wuhan-Rome, both from December 16.
In Australasia, China Southern serves Auckland, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Christchurch will be its sixth destination. The SkyTeam carrier will increase frequency to Sydney from 14 to 21 weekly flights, to Melbourne from 14 to 18, Brisbane five to seven and Auckland from ten to 14 rotations, for a total of 67 weekly flights to the region, the highest among the Mainland’s Big Three.
In Asia, apart from Sabah, it will increase Guangzhou-Nha Trang to daily and significantly boost frequency to Male, Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City, and for the first time deploy a wide body A330 to Delhi. It also has 37 direct services a week from Guangzhou to Japan, including a double daily Haneda route.
Further north, China Eastern Airlines will sell its remaining 5% stake in loss-making Joy Air, a regional airline and AVIC-protégé based in Xi'an, for 35 million yuan ($5.51 million), China’s National Business Daily has reported. China Eastern used to hold 40% in Joy Air, 35% of which it transferred to AVIC in 2009 as the financial crisis was roiling the markets. Joy Air lost 152 million yuan in 2014 and ended last year with debt of 1.07 billion yuan, exceeding its total assets of 966 million yuan. "We only have a 5% symbolic stake in Joy Air now, and the carrier is not a good match for us in terms of market position or business model," China Eastern's board secretary said in July.
Xiamen Airlines, another SkyTeam carrier, received its sixth and last B787-8 last week. The carrier has launched long-haul operations to Amsterdam since it received the first frame in August 2014 and will add twice-weekly Fuzhou-Sydney and twice-weekly Xiamen-Sydney from November 29 and December 5, respectively. Xiamen Air said it plans its debut in the U.S. next year. It fits its -8s with four first, 18 business and 215 economy seats, and has agreed to acquire six larger -9 variants from Boeing.
In the interim, news has emerged Gingko Tree, a division of the Chinese state's foreign exchange regulator, is in talks with Australia's Macquarie Group about teaming up to make an offer for London City Airport, estimated at approximately two billion pounds ($3.07 billion).
