CHINA / Regional |
Air China to add routes, staff before Olympics(Bloomberg)Updated: 2007-07-23 13:38 Air China Ltd., the nation's largest international carrier, will add routes and staff as the 2008 Olympic Games fuel demand for travel to its hub, Beijing. Air China will increase the frequency of flights to the U.K., France and Russia, as well as to the U.S., said Zhang Lan, senior vice president of Air China, in an interview in Beijing. It's also applying to add a route to Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. Beijing expects 1.7 million visitors for the Olympics, with 1.1 million domestic travelers and the rest from overseas, according to the Beijing 2008 Organizing Committee. The carrier plans to join Star Alliance, the world's largest airline group, by the end of this year allowing it to sell tickets on its partners' international routes. ``Network expansion may help boost Air China's profit,'' said Zhang. ``We're aiming to become one of the world's best- performing carriers.'' The Beijing-based carrier plans to move all its operations to a new terminal in Beijing Capital International Airport, which will start operations in March 2008. The new terminal, Asia's largest, will handle flights of Air China and its domestic and overseas partners. Air China will add several hundred support staff and recruit volunteers to help serve the visitors, Zhang said. Beijing's Congestion Air China and the nation's other carriers, which have been suffering from the congestion at Beijing airport, may reduce flight delays after the airfield's infrastructure expansion completes next year. About 60 percent of the carrier's sales come from domestic flights, with the rest from international routes. The new terminal and a third runway will more than double the Beijing airport's annual design capacity to 78 million passengers. Beijing Capital International Airport, Asia's second-busiest after Tokyo's Haneda airport, has been overloaded as China's economic growth makes air travel affordable to more people. The airport handled 26 million passengers in the first half of this year, a 16 percent increase from a year earlier. It handled 48.7 million passengers last year, exceeding its design capacity of 35 million. The airport operator will reduce the 1,100 daily flights it handles a day by
9 percent starting September, to cut airspace congestion, Zhang said, citing a
notice from the General Administration of Civil Aviation. The temporary practice
will apply to all domestic carriers until the new terminal officially starts
operation in March, she said, without saying how many Air China flights will be
canceled. |
|