Travel & Transport

China Southern upgrades GZ-Sydney to superjumbo on cheap Canton Route

Posted: 05/6/2013 8:53 am

China Southern Airlines’ (CSA) flagship A380 superjumbo is set to land in Sydney later this October underlining Australia’s importance as a key tourism and trading partner to Beijing.

Starting October 27, flight CZ325/326 will shuttle passengers between Guangzhou and Sydney, boosting the ‘Canton Route’ as the cheapest way to fly between the Australia and Europe.

With 41 per cent more capacity, according to CAPA data, it will increase the number of cheap tickets, especially at the front and top of the plane: there will be 52 more business class seats and four more in first class to fill.

Travelers won’t be able to fly all the way to London on the A380, however. Qantas, Emirates and Singapore Airlines are the only full-service carriers to fly all the way with the superjumbo.

CSA plans to put Boeing’s troubled Dreamliner on its European destinations – Amsterdam, London, Moscow and Paris – as soon as the first of 10 deliveries arrive.

Travelers en-route to Australia and Europe will be able to take advantage of Guangzhou’s soon-to-be implemented 72-hour visa free policy, potentially boosting Guangdong’s image to tourists.

People are packing their bags for Down Under in droves. Some 386,000 passengers flew with CSA in 2012, 56 per cent more than in 2011, according to Xinhua.

China’s biggest airline is proving a popular choice with the best connections to Australia.

The Guangzhou-based airline already flies twice-a-day to Sydney, and 30 return flights a week to Australia from its Baiyun hub, doubling the number of services operated three years-ago.

CSA has ambitious plans to operate 55 weekly return flights to Australia and New Zealand by 2015.

The combined popularity of Asia’s largest airline and the allure of Australia means that all services Down Under are turning a profit. It’s a rare bright spot, with most international routes deep in the red as a result of aggressive expansion.

Outside of China, the A380 only flies to Los Angeles. Regulatory hold-ups have restricted the majority of the five planes worth US$389 million each to Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The latest earnings by CSA show an 82 per cent slump in first quarter net profit to RMB57 million (US$9.1 million).

Photos by Danny Lee and Noel Jones

Tagged: A380AviationBaiyunCanton RouteChina Southern AirlinesCSAGuangzhou

Watch: All-out brawl at Guangzhou South Railway Station

Posted: 05/3/2013 10:36 am

Here is a spectacular attempt at a very public cat fight at Guangzhou South Railway Station.

At least a dozen passengers and railway staff became embroiled in a brawl. In the video, people throw themselves at one and another, falling over flying feet and fists, outside the security check-in zone. So far it’s not clear who came out on top in this dispute, or even what caused it.

With millions of people on the move in China every day, the public transport experience is has become ridden with tension and stress. There have been notable and sporadic outbreaks of travel tantrums over recent months.

Remember Yan Linkun, the suspended CPPCC committee member and deputy chairman of state-owned Yunnan Mining Corporation, who teamed up with his wife to smash gate 38 at Kunming Airport?

Just like in this new case, he was recorded on a mobile phone, seen ripping and throwing whatever he could find after he missed his flight.

More recently, a China Southern Airlines gate agent was snapped lying on the floor at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, covering his face after being attacked by an irate passenger over the late arrival of a flight.

There seems to be a lack of travel etiquette on the roads, rails and runways.

Kicking-off in Kunming Airport

Guangzhou Baiyun Airport incident

H/T: Shanghaiist

Tagged: BrawlfightGuangzhou South Railway Station

Shenzhen tackles crowding on the metro, will launch extra trains on the Luobao Line

Posted: 04/17/2013 7:00 am

Good news for people who regularly pile onto the metro in Shenzhen.

Trains will be added between Luohu and Xixiang metro stations on Shenzhen’s Luobao line to reduce overcrowding during morning and evening rush hours, The Daily Sunshine reports.

The new measure will be piloted on April 20 and, if all goes to plan, fully implemented on Thursday April 25.

The Luobao line is the oldest on Shenzhen’s metro system and runs from Luohu, the border with Hong Kong and the city’s busiest train station, to Airport East.

Tagged: luobao lineLuohuMetroShenzhenTrain

First photos of nation’s first underground train station in Shenzhen published

Posted: 04/10/2013 7:00 am

Photographs have been published by The Daily Sunshine of the construction site of Shenzhen Futian Train Station, which will be the country’s first underground transport hub. It will be part of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high speed railway, which will be completed in 2015.

The complex will also include a 100-meter long bus station

The station will be located at the intersection between Shennan Avenue and Yitian Road, and will be 270,000 square meters (that is 192 football fields) in size. Passengers will be able to use the station’s transfer hall to walk to the Futian and Civic Centre subway stations, which were completed ahead of the Universiade in 2011.

The station’s transfer hall

Approximately 1,500 people are working on the construction. Underground construction is especially difficult due to problems such as lighting and ventilation for workers.

The water storage area which will provide air conditioning for the station

The city is particularly proud of its use of new and green technology such as LED lighting in the project.

Tagged: Civic CentreFutian StationGuangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high sped railway

Shenzhen metro to introduce in-train Wi-fi in June

Posted: 04/4/2013 1:00 pm

The Shenzhen Metro will soon be offering high-speed internet to passengers via wi-fi installed in stations and trains. The system will be rolled out in June, according to the Kuang Chi Institute of Advanced Technology, Bendibao reports.

The speed of the network will be two to four times faster than traditional networks, which will still be exceedingly slow compared with global standards.

The specific date of the introduction of the technology, which is currently being developed by Southern Galaxy Valley Co., will be announced soon. Li Chunlin, deputy head of the Shenzhen Kuang Chi Institute of Advanced Technology, said this will also solve the problem that was encountered last autumn when several trains were halted due to the interference with the subway’s wifi system.

Tagged: Shenzhen MetrostationTrainTransportationWi-Fiwifi

Traffic hell: 70km long traffic jam following accident on Shenzhen-Shantou highway

Posted: 04/3/2013 5:44 pm

The photos of this traffic jam aren’t pretty.

An accident has caused a huge pileup on the Shenzhen-Shantou highway. Cars are currently backed up for more than 70 kilometres after an accident shortly after 3pm today (April 3). The long stretch of road has become a virtual parking lot, with people getting out of their cars because nobody’s moving.

If you have plans to head to Shantou, best shelve them for a while. If you must go though, police are asking people to take highway 324 instead.

Tagged: highwayPile-UpShantouShenzhenshenzhen-shantou highwayTraffic

First class faces axe at China Southern following Xi Jinping’s austerity measures

Posted: 04/2/2013 12:42 pm

Xi Jinping’s message of austerity seems to have landed at the head office of China’s biggest airline.

The CEO and President of China Southern Airlines, Tan Wangeng, is thinking drastic: the days of first class travel are over.

Not smiling anymore…on the delayed Dreamliner

If the axe goes ahead, it will be highly symbolic of the leadership influence in the north, and would no doubt please Zhongnanhai. But aside from this, China Southern just hasn’t been able to make much money through first class travel.

According to CAPA, the aviation experts, by reducing or pulling all top-notch seats, China Southern can install more business class seats and get a better yield per passenger.

If all first class seats were scrapped on its aircraft, including the flagship A380, it only amounts to 116 seats being removed across the fleet.

With the number of passengers choosing the Guangzhou-based airline rising, it cannot make enough money off them fast enough.

China Southern A330 first class

China Southern is not the only airline reexamining its offerings. These days business is the new first, and the likes of Emirates and Lufthansa have signaled their reservations about the future of first class travel. Even Cathay Pacific said it had “no opinion” on what it would do.

CAPA sums up the dilemma for China Southern:

China Southern’s long-haul capacity is increasingly comprised of transfer traffic, including notable long-haul to long-haul connections, and not point-to-point traffic that can better sustain first class on individual routes.

With long-haul connections, eliminating first class on one route could reduce demand on the corresponding service. Isolating certain connections to have or not have first class is difficult with a relatively small long-haul fleet, as China Southern has.

A380 first class

Tagged: BeijingCEOChina SouthernFirst ClassLeadershipTan Wan Gengxi jinpingZhongnanhai

Guangzhou tackles traffic congestion, will restrict non-Guangzhou registered vehicles

Posted: 03/22/2013 10:39 am

Guangzhou aims to tackle the city’s worsening traffic problem by introducing a new measure restricting certain vehicles from the road. (Shenzhen, are you listening?)

Under the new rules, vehicles registered outside of Guangzhou proper will be restricted from certain roads, and the downtown core, during certain times of the day. The speculation is rush hour traffic will be limited, for example. But as Guangzhou Daily reports, the times and locations for the restrictions haven’t been decided yet.

The new restrictions will throw a wrench into many people’s morning commute. As everybody knows, the PRD is a vast urbanized area, and not everybody who works in Guangzhou lives in Guangzhou. There are thousands of people who live in nearby Foshan, for instance, and make the daily commute. One person the paper talked to, Mr. Guo, said he may have to buy a car in Guangzhou and register it there if he wants to continue driving to work. Otherwise he’ll have to take the bus and transfer to the metro, meaning waking up quite a bit earlier each morning.

On the bright side, though, the moves show the government is trying to unclog the city’s main arteries. We’ll see if this is effective.

Tagged: CarsCongestionGuangzhouroadsTrafficTransportTravel

Guangzhou’s flagship carrier slashing fares, and Dragonair to change its name?

Posted: 03/21/2013 8:57 am

When it comes to the airline business, the gloves are off as Guangzhou muscles in on Hong Kong and Singapore’s party. Here’s another round-up of all the musings in the airline world in the Pearl River Delta.

Cheap Canton
China Southern Airlines is throwing down the gauntlet to the old-guard with rock bottom fares as it attempts to make a name for itself flying between Europe and Australia.

According to Bloomberg, CSA is undercutting Qantas by as much as 34 per cent between Sydney and London. It is prepared to sacrifice profitability so it can take market share away from Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore among others.

Here are the all-important numbers:

China Southern’s cheapest economy-class fare between Sydney and London for a two-week trip starting May 4 was A$1,442 (9,309 yuan, US$1497) on travel booking website webjet.com.au yesterday [March 13].

The lowest price for a non-Chinese airline, on Malaysian Airlines, was 19 per cent more expensive at A$1,721 (11,110 yuan, $1,786). Emirates tickets started at A$1,896 (12,240 yuan, $1968) while Singapore Air’s was at A$1,940 (12,524 yuan, $2,014).

The cheapest Qantas ticket was 51 per cent more than China Southern, at A$2,180 (14,074 yuan, $2,263).

Currently, all 30 weekly China Southern flights to Australia from Guangzhou are profitable, an incredible feat. However, a health check on the rest of the airline’s international network tells a different story. The majority are languishing in the red, along with its domestic operations.

These problems can be attributed to a lack of awareness to the CSA brand globally and serious competition in the mainland, but its image is changing as it further embeds itself into the SkyTeam airline alliance.

In announcing the Canton Route last year, it made a play on Cathay Pacific’s Hong Kong territory, but it also joined a handful of airlines connecting the dots, usually via the traditional Kangaroo route.

At the start of next month, Australia’s Qantas, which first coined the Kangaroo Route, will leave its Singapore stopover for Dubai in partnership with Emirates, leaving British Airways and Singapore Airlines a wide berth. But these carriers carry some of the highest fares, leaving state-backed CSA to undercut its rivals.

Bloomberg reports:

The [Canton] route will provide experience needed for further expansion into North America and Europe as annual spending by Chinese tourists exceeds $100 billion.

Here’s what the rivals have to say:

The Chinese carriers “are on our radar,” said Simon Hickey, head of Qantas’s international unit.

The competition “keeps us on our toes,” Singapore Air spokesman Nicholas Ionides.

Qantas and Singapore Air are configuring their own strategies for growth and profitablity

Peter Harbison of aviation analyst CAPA says:

“The sheer volumes of travelers mean that eventually China can be the most powerful transit country in the region, probably the world…They will be able to price very, very competitively.”

Plans to make Guangzhou a transit hub of choice are well underway, with upgrades to existing infrastructure and an expansion in full swing. Still, it has a ways to go before it can take on award-winning Changi Airport in Singapore, the premier choice.

BA to go A380 to Hong Kong
British Airways is joining the superjumbo pack later this year as it unleashes its first batch of 12 Airbus A380s to Hong Kong. The UK’s flagship carrier has penned November 15 for its first departure if all goes according to plan.

This will be a boost also to Cathay Pacific, as it joins up with BA to become the partner of choice to take passengers between Australia and Europe. Deploying the A380 will marginalise CSA’s attempts to shift passengers from Hong Kong to Guangzhou.

All change for Dragonair?
Rumours of a name change at Dragonair are being speculated, first reported by CAPA, as Cathay Pacific seeks to accelerate the makeover of the regional airline it bought back in 2006.

A rogue photo sent to the South China Morning Post has heightened speculation that change is afoot.

The name is Dragon… Cathay Dragon.

The hybrid puts a Swire stamp on its purchase, keeping part of the Dragonair brand – stated to be a powerful name among Asian travellers – and shoehorning Cathay, widely recognised around the world, to show who’s in charge.

The option to refresh the brand comes as naming rights expired last year leaving the door open to change.

Dragonair’s cabin offerings will soon be matched to its sister airline in all but colour, giving consistency to customers – a regular complaint among seasoned Cathay travellers shoved onto codeshare flights.

Dragonair image: SCMP / Other images: Danny Lee

Tagged: Airbus A380British AirwaysCanton RouteCAPACathay PacificChangi AirportChina Southern AirlinesEmiratesGuangzhou Baiyun AirportKangaroo RouteQantas AirwaysSingapore Airlines

Shenzhen has, apparently, the worst traffic congestion in all of China

Posted: 03/14/2013 12:54 pm

If you’re reading this article stuck in a traffic jam in Shenzhen, then we have some unfortunate news for you: you’d better get used to it.

In fact, traffic congestion will get significantly worse as more than 2.25 million cars are registered to drive on Shenzhen’s highways and byways – the densest concentration of vehicles per square kilometre of any major city in China.

Despite this, city officials seem happy with the status quo and see no reason to introduce restrictions on car purchases.

Other cities, like Guangzhou, have followed Beijing and Shanghai in introducing a lottery for license plates, which restricts the number of cars legally allowed to be on the road.

The number of automobiles on the road in Shenzhen has been growing by leaps and bounds, from 1 million cars in 2007 to 1.5 million in 2010 and 2 million by February last year. Considering private cars remain the ultimate status symbol in China, analysts don’t expect demand to subside anytime soon.

Source: Shenzhen Evening News via SCMP

Photo: Connie/Flickr