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.