Regional Round-Up
Spring may cut Japan services
March 1st 2013
China’s only privately-owned carrier, Spring Airlines, has put expansion plans in Japan on hold and is considering cancelling existing operations as a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries has decimated passenger load factors. Read More »
Spring chairman, Wang Zhenghua, said the carrier was filling less than 50% of its seats on the 12 weekly flights to Japan. This compares with an average of 92% capacity on other sectors.
“We have never had such empty flights in Spring’s history,” Wang told the Bloomberg news agency. “The political limbo is giving us a tough time as we don’t know when the market will recover.”
The chairman had been looking to make Japan the airline’s biggest overseas hub, although at present it makes up only 2% of Spring’s capacity. It is also planning to set up bases in Hong Kong and South Korea as part of its expansion.
The long-running dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands escalated last year when Tokyo bought the islands. There were violent protests on the Mainland with the government encouraging people not to travel to Japan.
