News
Hainan Airlines launches Tianjin-Vancouver route
June 1st 2018
Regardless of its parents’ financial woes, Hainan Airlines continues adding long-haul services to its route map. Read More »
The HNA Group airline has launched twice-weekly Tianjin-Vancouver nonstop flights, operated on Mondays and Fridays with two-class B787-8 aircraft seating 36 passengers in business class and 177 in economy class. Tianjin-Vancouver is Hainan Airlines’ 16th nonstop service to North America; the airline has a monopoly on the route.
Tianjin, a city of 16 million, is an important industrial hub and home of the Airbus China A320 final assembly line and A330 completion and delivery centre. Tianjin is approximately 1.5-2 hours by car from Beijing.
The route is expected to be subsidized by the Tianjin Municipality.
Hainan Airlines has added a number of intercontinental routes from Chinese second-tier cities this year, including flights from Shenzhen to Brussels and Madrid. The airline plans to launch Shenzhen-Vienna and Guangzhou-Tel Aviv in the next few weeks.
In May, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced a relaxation of its “one route, one airline”, a policy it introduced in 2009 to curb long haul competition among state-controlled carriers.
From October 1, on a case by case basis, the CAAC will allow more than one airline to operate on any long-haul route. The regulator said Mainland aviation had entered a new phase and implied there was sufficient demand to sustain profitability at the effected carriers.
As a result, it is expected that some of the ‘exotic’ and hard-to-turn-a-profit services, including routes such as Tianjin-Vancouver, will be cancelled when the policy change is put in place as affected carriers are expected to shift their flights to larger hub airports, depending on slot availability.
