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Shenzhen Airlines to receive six A330s, Shanghai’s Juneyao joins Star Alliance
September 30th 2016
Air China subsidiary, Shenzhen Airlines, will receive six A330-300s from its parent airline’s order book with Airbus, Aviation Week confirmed this week and noted the subsidiary had hoped for A350s or B787s with trans-Pacific range. Read More »
It had been suggested Shenzhen Airlines would take over Air China’s existing Shenzhen-Australia services and its three weekly Shenzhen-Frankfurt flights in addition to launching long-haul flights focused on Europe. The carrier has 167 aircraft: 81 A320 Family and 86 B737NG aircraft. It planned to take delivery of 86 new aircraft by 2020, it said last Friday when it celebrated the launch of a daily Guangzhou-Singapore A320 route.
Air China assistant president, Zhu Songyan, said the flag carrier will continue to expand its “intercontinental” gateway in Shanghai, but in a way that was least confrontational with Pudong-headquartered China Eastern Airlines. "We will continue to open international and long-haul routes at Shanghai, but we will, as far as possible, avoid direct confrontation with China Eastern. We do not want to create harmful competition," he said.The two state-controlled carriers overlap on services from Pudong to Frankfurt, Milan, Paris, Sydney and Melbourne.
Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines may solve Air China’s Shanghai predicament. Orient Aviation understands that Juneyao will join Air China and Shenzhen Airlines as a Star Alliance affiliate next month.
Separately, Shenzhen-based Donghai Airlines has applied to the CAAC to expand to international passenger services. The carrier has 14 aircraft and earlier this signed an order with Boeing for 25 B737MAXs and five B787-9s.
