By Andy Scott
SHANGHAI, Aug. 13 - Hainan Airlines has applied to operate non-stop flights between Beijing and Seattle starting next June authorities at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced.
Hainan Airlines will become the fourth carrier to operate flights between the mainland and the United States, joining Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern. The propoesed Beijing-Seattle route would be the first non-stop service between the two cities.
The application follows a recent agreement between China and the United States on doubling the number of passenger flights between the two countries by 2012. According to Xinhua, Hainan Airlines, China’s fourth largest carrier, has applied to operate the Beijing-Seattle route using Airbus A330 planes.
The Airbus airplanes will likely be leased as an interim measure until Hainan Airlines takes delivery of eight new Boeing 787 Dreamliners which the company ordered in 2005. The first plane is scheduled to be delivered in June 2008.
The transportation agreement allows 23 daily round-trip flights between China and the United States by 2012, up from the 10 flights at present. The United States has been pushing China to implement an “open skies” agreement and the two countries are expected to begin negotiations to lift restrictions no commercial air traffic in 2010.
This is just another example of the demand for flights both in and out of China. However, as we discussed last week, until the airport infrastructure in China changes to accommodate this increase of plane traffic, and perhaps more fundamentally, until the skies over the mainland are seen as “open” as opposed to under the control of the PLA, there will continue to be the kinds of flight delays and missed connections that has come to represent air travel in the Middle Kingdom.
