China Southern Airlines adds 34 routes this winter. Australia/NZ expansion key to long-haul strategy

China Southern Airlines remains committed to its Oceania expansion, seeing success on its Australian operations as key to its international network development and strategy. The carrier is, simultaneously, continuing its profitable cross-Strait and also domestic expansion efforts, as reflected by the 34 new routes being added to its winter 2011/12 schedule. There were 26 new domestic routes and eight new international/regional routes this schedule (30-Oct-2011 through 24-Mar-2012), with the network covering over 500 scheduled routes, including over 380 domestic, 95 international and over 20 regional routes.

China Southern stated its winter 2011/2012 schedule will "make full use of its hubs and increase the proportion of international flights to promote the optimisation of the overall route network". The network focuses on the improvement of the transit links between the international routes, along with the enhanced transit links between domestic routes and international routes, with the carrier ultimately planning to position its Guangzhou hub as a key gateway between Australia and Europe. The carrier stated hub concentration has reached 71.1% under the winter schedule, a 5.7% year-on-year increase. The carrier is also accelerating its international development, with the proportion of international services to increase to 26.8% of capacity (ASKs).