China Southern Airlines may deploy A380 to New York City to accelerate US east coast development

China Southern Airlines is Asia's largest airline group with a fleet that in 2014 exceeded 600 for the first time. Yet just five passenger aircraft - albeit the world's largest - have caused a considerable burden. Financially China Southern's five A380s remain under-utilised with a 12 hour utilisation rate in a brief peak season and eight hours for the rest of the year. Maintenance costs are increasing and residual values decreasing as the aircraft clock up short-haul sectors. From a marketing perspective, China Southern's flagship boasts only one year-round international service, to Los Angeles, and a seasonal Sydney service.

The fleet may get a boost if China Southern follows through with consideration about introducing a daily A380 service on its Guangzhou-New York JFK route, inaugurated in Aug-2014 with four weekly 777-300ER flights. Alternatively China Southern could grow in New York with 10 weekly 777-300ER flights. Large growth would continue the interest Chinese carriers have placed in the US east coast but would add to over-capacity (and losses) in the China-US market. Meanwhile, less than an hour away from Guangzhou, Cathay Pacific has five daily flights from Hong Kong to the New York area.