Spring Airlines to estabish second operating base in Shijiazhuang

Spring Airlines has reportedly selected Shijiazhuang over Shenyang as the site of its second airport base with the LCC planning to deploy 200 of its employees to the city and a new A320 at Shijiazhuang Airport on 30-Jun-2011, bringing its number of aircraft in Hebei to four (Carnoc.com/Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, 27-Jun-2011). The carrier is scheduled to launch three routes from Shijiazhuang to Xiamen, Nanjing and Dalian in Jul-2011 and three more routes in Sep-2011. By the end of Sep-2011, passenger traffic at Shijiazhuang is expected to make up 20% of the LCC's total traffic with an average daily passenger number of 4000. Spring Airlines is targetting an average daily passenger number of 19,000 in 2011.