United Airlines employees wave to an aircraft as it prepares to take off from Dulles International Airport in Virginia on a non-stop flight to Beijing.[Bloomberg News]
BEIJING - After hibernating for over one year due to the economic downturn, US airlines in China are rushing to get the upper hand in the industry recovery by increasing capacity and dishing out new products in the world's fastest growing commercial aviation market.AMR Corp's American Airlines will launch a daily nonstop service between Chicago and Beijing from next Monday. The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier originally planned to start the service last year.
Continental Airlines, the world's fifth-largest carrier, on Thursday unveiled its new lie-flat business-class seats on routes to China to attract premium travelers.
United Airlines, the world's largest transpacific carrier, resumed its daily nonstop service between Washington and Beijing at the end of March after a five-month suspension. The Chicago-headquartered airline last week also unveiled its new first and business class products featuring wider lie-flat seats on all Boeing 747 flights to and from China.
That contrasts greatly with the situation a year ago when US airlines were scrambling to push back their new China route launches or reduce the frequency of their services as international travel demand in the Asia-Pacific region was hit particularly hard by the economic downturn.
But many airlines began to fill their vacant seats last summer and international passenger traffic demand stopped its year-on-year decline since November last year in a sign that the airline industry might have passed through the most severe turbulence.
"The Pacific is showing its traditional strength and moving at a higher level compared to our other international markets," Glenn Tilton, chairman and CEO of United Airlines, said in an interview earlier this month.
China is powering a global economic recovery as its economy is expected to grow at about 10 percent both this year and in 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday. Emerging Asia's recovery is mainly fuelled by a revival in exports and strong domestic demand, the IMF said in a report.
"Traffic recovery on routes connecting China with the US and Europe will be the most eye-catching phenomenon this year," said Li Lei, an aviation analyst with CITIC China Securities.
International scheduled air traffic showed continued strengthening of demand in February as passenger demand was up 9.5 percent year-on-year, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
"Up until about six months ago, we started to see a slow but sure recovery in business class traffic on all of our China routes (the stronger traffic) originated from both sides of the Pacific. With the World Expo in Shanghai, we believe our Shanghai route will be a star performer this year," said Dave Hilfman, Continental Airlines' senior vice-president of worldwide sales.
Continental started flying nonstop between Beijing and New York five years ago. It was the only US airline to introduce a route to China last year by launching nonstop daily service between Shanghai and New York.
"As additional routes and frequencies between China and the US become available, Continental will continue to look for opportunities to apply for that route authority to add new service. This is increasingly important for us next year when we receive deliveries of our Boeing 787 aircraft," Hilfman said.
The number of flights between the two countries is regulated by a bilateral agreement between the governments.
