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Hainan plans long-haul flights and HK Express adds maiden A321 to its fleet
November 4th 2016
Hainan Airlines continues its rapid network expansion with new flights to Brussels, London and New York. Read More » From April, the HNA Group carrier will launch a thrice-weekly Changsha-London service, followed by a twice-weekly Changsha-New York B787 route from July.
On Monday, high-ranking Chinese government officials, including Prime Minister Li Keqiang, and representatives from Hainan Airlines and Brussels Airport agreed to open a nonstop Shanghai-Brussels link next year.
Hainan flies to Brussels from Beijing and the carrier also serves Berlin, Moscow, St Petersburg, Prague and Manchester from the Mainland capital. Hainan’s other long-haul services to Europe include Hangzhou-Xian-Paris and Chongqing-Rome.
One of HNA’s LCC units, Yunnan-based Lucky Air, last week opened a branch in the Eastern city of Zhengzhou. It will base three B737-800s in the city, but has plans to grow that presence to 20 aircraft by 2020.
In Hong Kong, HNA’s local LCC subsidiary, HK Express, last weekend took delivery of the first of 12 on-order A321ceos – leased from BoCom Leasing. HK Express has a 26 city network serviced by 15 A320ceos. It expects to receive the first of 12 on-lease A320neos from Arctic Aviation Assets before year-end.
