As recession takes its toll on air transport in Europe, carriers continue to add capacities between China and the Continent or even open new routes to secondary destinations. With the objective to capture a share of the huge Chinese outbound market.
BANGKOK- Although it is all gloom in Europe for airlines -which try to ride over the most severe economic downturn of the last 50 years-, there is still a ray of light. And it carries the red colour of China.
With economic growth rates still pending between 9% and 10% a year, with the continuous boom in consumption from a growing middle-class, the Asian giant remains the land of all opportunities for airlines keen to boost both traffic and revenues. In 2011, Europe made 29.7% of all international trips from Chinese. From a total of 14.5 million trips overseas –according to data collected by the European Tourism Commission ETC- Europe received 4.3 million travellers. While Western Europe recorded collectively 2.9 million Chinese arrivals, ‘Emerging Europe’ saw 1.5 million of Chinese travellers. Although the total market share is slightly done for both parts of Europe compared to 2001 (-0.3%), perspectives remain encouraging. Until 2015, the ETC estimates that Chinese to Europe will reach 5.8 million travellers a year.
Other factors stimulating traffic between Europe and China is the growing number of tourists and business travellers commuting between both. According to PATA data for 2010, they were 2.85 million of Europeans who came by air to China PRC. If Hong Kong is included into the calculation, total European travellers to Greater China reached in 2010 slightly over four million air arrivals.
Ongoing tensions at political levels between China and Europe over the ETS (Europe Emissions Trading Schemes) do not affect the rise in capacities between both parts of the world including the launch of new routes by air carriers. According to the European Tourism Commission and based on data provided by SRS Analyser, 23 airlines operated 471 weekly flights from China and Hong Kong to Europe (in the one direction, and excluding Russia in Asia), with a capacity of 134,934 seats back to September 2010. For the same month of 2011, 21 air carriers provided 157,812 seats on 541 weekly flights. In September 2012, SRS Analyser flight planning give a total of 22 airlines offering 583 flights per week, representing a capacity of 164,241 seats.
New flights over the summer to China PRC included:
- Air China: Shanghai Pudong to Paris CDG, five weekly flights
- Air China: Beijing to London Gatwick, four weekly flights
- Air France: Paris CDG to Wuhan, three weekly flights
- China Southern: Guangzhou to London Heathrow, three weekly flights
- Finnair: Helsinki to Chongqing, four weekly flights
- LOT Polish Airlines: Warsaw to Beijing, three weekly flights
- Lufthansa: Frankfurt to Shenyang and Quingdao, three weekly flights
- SAS: Copenhagen to Shanghai Pudong, five weekly flights
- Swiss: Zurich to Beijing, daily flight
Today, airlines fly in China the cities of Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai as well as a higher number of secondary cities such as Chongqing, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Shenyang and Wuhan. Flights to Nanjing (Lufthansa) and Chengdu (KLM) stopped.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
