Air China's long haul Shanghai expansion targets Hainan Airlines, leaves China Eastern uncomfortable

Before China was recognised widely as a unique growth opportunity, its aviation planners already knew China would quickly evolve to becoming the world's biggest market. To guide development, they turned to the world's existing largest market - the United States - and became enamoured with the hub concept, from Northwest's fortress in Detroit to American's sprawling operation at Dallas. The lesson that US airlines and airports imparted on Chinese delegations was that when given large geography, numerous competitions and dozens of major cities, airlines needed to focus on dominating a strong hub.

And so Air China had Beijing, China Eastern occupied Shanghai and China Southern based at Guangzhou. Domestic competition has since become more complex but long haul flying has generally stuck to hub principles. Until recently, that is. In 2015 Hainan Airlines launched Shanghai services to existing long haul points it already served from its main Beijing base. This was a challenge to Shanghai-based China Eastern, which has lagged long haul development (and experienced hub encroachment from Air China). Air China has been annoyed by Hainan occasionally securing blue chip destinations - Chicago, Toronto - thereby blocking Air China from serving those.