Beijing rings in the changes, but will they be enough to save China’s airlines?

China's airline industry faces a financial challenge more pernicious than the Asian Financial Crisis and SARS combined. For Chinese aviation, the blows came earlier than most, starting with the vicious snow storms over the Lunar New Year holiday period almost 12 months ago. From there, the Tibet protests, Sichuan earthquakes, Olympics security crackdown, record fuel prices, yuan depreciation and now the global economic slowdown - including a rapid deceleration of the Chinese economy - have taken a heavy toll on the local airline industry.