William Dennis

Second-tier Chinese airlines will gain traffic rights from their civil aviation body to fly to the United Kingdom under the new bilateral agreement signed between the People’s Republic and Britain earlier this month. With immediate effect passenger flights by Chinese airlines may increase from the current 40 per week to 100.

 


The Chinese authorities plan to allot 28 of the 60 additional flights to so-called second-tier airlines, including Hainan Airlines (HAL) and Tianjin Airlines (TAL), which already own traffic rights for service into the UK. Other carriers that want to launch flights there will also gain approvals.

 


HAL currently operates four times weekly Beijing-Manchester flights using Airbus A330-200s while TAL offers three-times-weekly services on the Tianjin-Chongqing-London Gatwick route using the same equipment. Air China, which currently operates daily Beijing-London Heathrow&nbsp;flights, plans to introduce four-times-weekly Shanghai-Manchester flights in March 2017.

 


“This new development will be a big boost to tourism and business while generating more jobs,” said Lu Shen, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

 


Chinese arrivals in Britain jumped 46 percent last year to 270,000.

 


Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, HAL and TAL now operate 38 of the 40 weekly flights allotted to Chinese airlines, while British Airways and Virgin Atlantic fly another 29.

 


The new bilateral agreement scraps the six-city-per-country restriction for passenger flights. The new agreement also imposes no restriction on the number of cargo flights.

 


Lu acknowledged that more Chinese carriers will benefit from the increased traffic.

 


By increasing the number of flights, Britain has signaled its intention to welcome new commercial agreements as it prepares to end its 43-year membership of the European Union. It would see more direct services from the mainland to the UK as part of the British government’s aim to boost intercontinental links, and Chinese travelers flying to UK and Europe would no longer have to depend on Cathay Pacific’s Hong Kong hub as a connecting point.

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