News
Beijing Capital Airlines carves out new markets as Juneyao continues profit run and Longjiang Airlines accepts first aircraft
April 29th 2016
Beijing Capital Airlines (BCA), a HNA Group subsidiary, is gradually conquering markets untapped by the “Big Three” state-controlled carriers. Read More »
This week, in an announcement on the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) website, BCA said it had applied for a three times a week A340 service from its Beijing hub to Mexico City from January. The proposed route is in addition to plans for twice weekly Beijing-Helsinki and Beijing-Zagreb services from May and June 2017, respectively, using A330s. As it stands, BCA would hold monopolies to both Mexico and Croatia. It has two leased ex-Garuda Indonesia A330-200s on its books and it will receive two off factory -300s in the near future. The supplier of the A340s has not been identified.
The Beijing carrier is carving out new niche markets, driven primarily by middle class leisure demand. It launched services to Copenhagen and Madrid in late 2015, and plans to start flying to Australia this summer, followed by Vancouver in the winter season.
Similarly, parent or sister carrier (one cannot be too sure), Hainan Airlines, this week applied for twice-weekly route permits between Changsha and Xi’An, respectively, to Melbourne, following previously reported new routes to Calgary (from Beijing, June 30) and Auckland (from Shenzhen, November 1). The HNA carrier has begun adding long-haul frequencies out of secondary Mainland cities, including Chongqing-Rome and Tianjin-Vancouver, after launching Tel Aviv, Manchester, Prague, San Jose and Los Angeles in 2015.
On Monday, Shanghai-headquartered Juneyao Airlines (“auspicious”) reported a first-quarter net profit of 454.2 million yuan ($70 million), up 70% year-on-year. Operating revenues grew 30.4%, but operating expenses increased 30.6%, likely the result of foreign exchange losses. Juneyao did not offer an explanation for reported figures.
In other China updates, China’s first independent LCC , Shanghai-based Spring Airlines, this week filed for four-weekly traffic rights between Pudong and Irkutsk, three-weekly Shijiazhuang-Osaka flights and daily services between Guangzhou and Osaka, Kunming-Hangzhou-Jeju and Pudong-Okinawa.
Further north, Harbin-based start-up, Longjiang Airlines (LJ Air), this week received its maiden, ex-Niki A321 aircraft, which is being repainted and refitted in Shenyang. Contradicting Mainland media reports, Airbus has told Orient Aviation that LJ Air has no aircraft on direct order from the manufacturer.
Subject to CAAC clearance, LJ plans to launch scheduled passenger services from June on four domestic routes: Harbin-Xi'an-Chengdu, Harbin-Yiwu-Nanning, Harbin-Guangzhou-Shenzhen and Harbin-Beijing. With the arrival of more aircraft, the Okay Airways subsidiary plans to add international services to the Russian Far East, Korea and Japan. By 2020, the start-up proposes to operate a fleet of 30 aircraft.
