Air NZ looks to build on China foothold
An NZPA report says that Air New Zealand wants to expand its China services in the leadup to the Beijing Olympics by building on the experience gained on its Auckland-Shanghai route and its relationship with Chinese airlines.
Chief executive Rob Fyfe, in Beijing today for the formalities around Air China and Shanghai Airlines joining the global airline grouping Star Alliance, said the success of the inbound Shanghai-Auckland service depended very heavily on the connections with the Chinese airlines.
“We rely very heavily on both Air China and Shanghai Airlines to feed us at that [the Shanghai] gateway.
Mr Fyfe said the Shanghai service drew significant numbers of Chinese tourists, around 80 per cent of inbound visitors on the Shanghai service were tourists “but they are very widely distributed so connecting networks are quite critical”.
Tourism New Zealand has predicted China could be New Zealand’s third biggest inbound tourism market within five years. Chinese visitor numbers have jumped nearly 400 per cent since 2000 with almost 120,000 visiting in the year to October.
Tourism NZ chief executive George Hickton told an inbound tour operators forum last week that the number of inbound visitors from China could double again by 2012 as a booming Chinese economy meant wages were rising fast, creating an affluent younger travel sector which was likely to have different travel expectations.
Historically Chinese tourists had just been offered shopping tours which relied heavily on providing the best price but newer visitors needed to be made more aware of New Zealand’s more adventurous tourist offerings, Mr Hickton said.
Mr Fyfe said Air New Zealand had started with three Auckland-Shanghai services a week but had now expanded that to five and would like to lift that to seven by August 2008.
The airline would like to lift the number of flights it offers, currently capped at seven a week, and has already raised the issue with Chinese civil aviation authorities.
Air China, the country’s national flag carrier and largest airline and Shanghai Airlines officially joined the Star Alliance today. Air New Zealand, United Airlines, Lufthansa are among the now 19 strong airline alliance.
The two Chinese carriers will gain access to around 17,000 daily flights currently operated by most of the alliance members. In turn the alliance, including Air New Zealand, will extend its network of hubs in Beijing and Shanghai, China’s top two destinations, and accordingly get more access to the country’s overseas flights.
China’s aviation industry more than tripled between January and September this year, mainly attributed to robust consumer demand.
It is estimated the Chinese industry posted a profit of RMB13.72 billion in the first three quarters from RMB 4.38 billion in the previous year.
At present, Star Alliance members fly to 855 airports in 155 countries through a fleet of 2778 aircraft.
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