Shanghai Hongqiao Airport

Air China turns attention to international markets, but its profits are regional and domestic

Air China's hub at Beijing Capital is effectively at capacity for movements between 07:00 and midnight. Consequently the carrier is increasingly using its existing slots to launch international services that support its positioning as China's international flag airline; this also allows Air China to grow revenue, which in 2012 surpassed RMB100 billion (USD16 billion) for the first time. But these services, aside from Taiwan, offer only lower yields and faint glimmers of profitability – unlike the domestic heartland operations.

With Air China's domestic RPKs growing only 0.5% in 2012, the carrier is seeking to assure the market it has domestic growth opportunities left by expanding its hubs at Chengdu and Shanghai, although the latter is also constrained by slots. The Air China Group also has a portfolio of domestic carriers, including Shenzhen Airlines (the country's sixth largest), Shandong Airlines and Tibet Airlines. They account for about a third of the group's domestic revenue and most traffic growth.

SkyTeam's Greater China airline members to form regional alliance in high-yielding market

A proposed regional alliance amongst SkyTeam's Greater China members – Taiwan's China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern and Xiamen Airlines – may appear to be a niche strategic move in the small but highly profitable and expanding Taiwan-mainland China market.

Yet the alliance is also indicative of the growing trend for North Asian airlines to combine their strengths against imposing competitors, namely Air China and Cathay Pacific.

The alliance would account for about half of the capacity between China and Taiwan, a valuable market which is continuously expanding under tight control and route delegation. Its share on certain key business routes, like Taipei-Shanghai, would be even higher. Further airline strength and capacity will pressure Hong Kong-based carriers, which once had a healthy business of carrying passengers between China and Taiwan via their hub.

Juneyao Airlines, China's boutique carrier, expands internationally and looks for partners

There are some 30 airlines in China and almost all of them are affiliated with one of the country's main four airline groups: Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Hainan Airlines.

An exception is Juneyao Airlines, independently and privately owned. It has found a successful niche operating as a quality premium leisure, or boutique, carrier based at Shanghai, the epicentre of new wealth in the country. Juneyao also carries business traffic, but is perhaps willing to understate its importance in that market so as not to draw attention – and possibly interference from an over-zealous regulator. 

The carrier is now targeting a few strategic developments. It has commenced scheduled international operations with a service to Thailand's Phuket and is looking to export its model beyond Shanghai to other bases in mainland China.

But of greatest relevance to the industry is its aspiration to develop a series of partnerships – from marketing to codeshare – to increase traffic flows. It boasts a strong product and network from Shanghai, which most international carriers serve.

China Eastern-Hong Kong Airlines partnership bolsters them in a market dominated by Air China-Cathay

The melting pot of increasingly tangled and conflicting alliances is perhaps bigger nowhere else than in Greater China. Driving the partnerships is an entanglement of its own, the cross-holding between the state-favoured, Star-aligned Air China and powerhouse but oneworld member Cathay Pacific. The message that formidable force sent – a region divided between Air China-Cathay and The Rest – is producing smart partnerships amongst the comparatively smaller participants.

The latest is a codeshare between China Eastern and Hong Kong Airlines covering flights between Hong Kong and mainland China. So far it is a limited partnership on reciprocal routes that gives a larger offering of flight times. That appeases the corporate market which China Eastern reckons it has under-captured due to its lack of widebody flights compared to competitors. The partnership also allows China Eastern to regain momentum in the Hong Kong market, where it has decreased capacity following the opening of cross-strait flights to Taiwan in 2008.

China’s incredible airport growth

Chinese airports have grown at an incredible rate over the past ten years. The video below, taken from a recent conference presentation by CAPA Executive Chairman, Peter Harbison, demonstrates the dynamic change, as China's airports rise up the rankings.

The bubbles represent the relative size of the leading airports (in terms of millions of passengers p/a), while the horizontal scale represents annual growth. Beijing Airport has surged into second place behind Atlanta in a very short space of time. Shanghai Pudong and Hong Kong airports are also climbing.

(And note also Dubai Airport's incredible trajectory).