Airline Fanatic

Ben Mutzabaugh of Today in the Sky has a post up about a report out of Boston stating that Hainan Airlines(which is re-branding itself as Grand China Air) will start nonstop China service from the northeastern city in 2009.  The new service would use Hainan’s Boeing 787 aircraft, so the exact start of service depends on Boeing’s delayed delivery schedule.

Grand China Air’s hub is in the southern city of Haikou, but I highly doubt they would offer nonstop service all the way from Boston to there.  A more likely situation is service from Boston (BOS) to Beijing (PEK), also a city served by Grand China.  The bottom line however is that this is not an announcement, just rumors circulated by a paper, so nothing may materialize at all.  Having said that it does seem fairly reasonable to assume that Boston would get a nonstop China flight sometime in the future.  Sit tight Bostonites!

The date is fast approaching when all air travel will be done using electronic tickets.  For the most part this is because of the innate advantages electronic tickets offer over their older paper brothers.  There are of course plenty of countries lagging in this effort, so global legislation enforced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has made electronic ticketing mandatory for all airlines as of June 1, 2008.  The IATA recently placed an order for 16.5 million paper tickets to supply those airlines bringing up the rear in the race to convert over to e-tickets, but that order was their final one.

China and Russia are the two last major countries trying to meet the deadline in this global effort.  In 2005 for example only 10% of Chinese travelers used e-tickets, but that number skyrocketed to 90% by 2006.   Russia actually had legislation forbidding airlines from using e-tickets (who knows why), which leaves them in last place with only 42% total tickets being electronic. Most countries, even impoverished ones, are ready for the transition however, with Nepal and Papua New Guinea both using 100% e-tickets.

[Via the New York Times]

United just announcednew nonstop service between San Francisco and Guangzhou, China, to start on June 18th of next year.  The route will be operated once daily on one of United’s 777 aircraft, nicely equipped with 10 first class “suites” and 45 business class seats.  This should be a fairly lucrative route for United as most Pacific routes are – there should be plenty of business travelers with expense accounts and corporate travel programs who will pony up for business and first class comfort.

United already has good reach into Asia, especially in China.  The new service to Guangzhou is complemented by existing service from San Francisco to Beijing and Shanghai, Chicago to Beijing and Shanghai, and Washington to Beijing.  There are plenty of other US carriers vying to get the rights to enter the Chinese market, but United remains leaps and bounds ahead for now.