News
Air China reports robust April figures and accepts first B787-9
May 20th 2016
On Thursday, Mainland flag carrier, Air China, took delivery of the first of 15-on-order B787-9s at Boeing’s North Charleston facility. Read More » Air China fits the Dreamliner with 293 seats in a three-class layout: 30 2-2-2-configured business class seats, 34 premium economy and 229 economy seats. The new airplane, after crew familiarisation training, will service Beijing to Frankfurt from July 15 and Beijing-Rome from August 1.
Air China expects to accept seven Dreamliners this year with eight more of the aircraft type to arrive in Beijing by 2018. At April 30, the flag carrier and its subsidiaries operated 593 airplanes.
In April, the airline carried 8.03 million revenue passengers and 145,300 tons of cargo and mail, up 8.5% and 4.6% year-on-year, respectively. Air China’s ASKs during the month grew 9.7% overall, as international capacity increased 15.2%, while growing 7.9% on domestic routes. On regional services, which means flights to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, April capacity dropped 6.9% year-on-year. This downward trend has been observed for some time now and is being linked to the growing Chinese middle class that is travelling to new destinations, particularly Southeast Asia and Japan. Air China’s passenger load factor improved 0.1% from a year earlier to 80.3%, as freight loads rose 0.2% to 54%.
