Restrictions on resources and policies have always been the biggest obstacle for most Chinese airlines to enter the Beijing hub, one of China's most attractive aviation hubs. However, as the Daxing International Airport is about to be completed, resource constraints are clearly no longer a major issue. In order to increase the volume of the new airport as soon as possible, industry regulators have also adopted a series of new policies to encourage airlines to increase their traffic rights. As many routes and capacity are invested in the new airport, this has also triggered a fierce battle over the right to operate the newly added intercontinental routes.

Four airlines compete for "Daxing-Paris"

On March 20th, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (hereinafter referred to as the Civil Aviation Administration of China) announced the latest phase of application for operating permits for international routes. The most notable one is that Beijing Daxing-Paris has applied for four airlines at the same time, which includes not only It has always been considered that China Eastern Airlines Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Eastern Airlines), which is most likely to obtain the right to operate this route, and China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Southern Airlines), which has long decided to develop Daxing Airport as a core hub. , Also includes Juneyao Airlines Co., Ltd., a private airline based in Shanghai (hereinafter referred to as Juneyao Airlines), and Beijing Capital Airlines Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Capital Airlines).

This is also a new change that has begun to appear in applications for popular airline resources since the implementation of the "Administrative Measures for the Allocation and Use of International Traffic Rights Resources" in October last year. According to the new rules, international routes are divided into two categories: Class I and Class II, and they have begun to gradually break the unwritten “one carrier per route” rule on intercontinental lines. In particular, European routes are classified as Class II. Both resources and openness must be greater, so there are more opportunities.

China and France have previously increased the number of weekly flights from no more than 50 to 126 through new air rights negotiations, which greatly frees up the space for airlines to choose, and makes France the most popular among Europeans all year round. Tourism destinations can accommodate more new route resources to enter. According to the newly announced route application, airlines have submitted a total of 72 new applications per week, including new routes and additional flights. In addition to first-line hubs such as Beijing and Shanghai, the departure airport also includes Nanchang, Nanchang and Shanghai. For applications for direct flights from secondary hubs such as Wenzhou and Nanjing, the destinations have also expanded from Paris to destinations that have not previously opened direct flights, including Nice and Marseille.

"The special thing about Daxing Airport is that many companies hope to make it an important point for future development, so there will be a lot of companies applying for new routes here," Liu Hao, deputy general manager of China Eastern Airlines Beijing Branch, said on March 18 In an exclusive interview with a reporter from China Times, “However, the air rights allocation policy is continuous, which also determines the concept of the main base airline is not the same. Therefore, the state will still consider when assigning air rights to Daxing Airport. To these questions."

At present, according to the Daxing Airport traffic rights allocation plan, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines have each obtained 40% of the shares. Compared with the foundations that the two airlines have already established in the domestic route network, how can they win more international routes at Daxing Airport? Become a key issue. Judging from the several international airline operating permit applications recently announced by the Civil Aviation Administration, the two companies have already competed tit-for-tat.

In addition to the Beijing Daxing-Paris route, the two companies have also applied for Moscow and a number of South Korean routes. As the new airport is approaching, there will definitely be more new routes that will become the focus of contention.

This also brings about a problem, that is, it is impossible for all airlines to obtain the flight operation qualification as they wish. "If the air rights application before the new regulations is that the airline has done a lot of preparatory work in the early stage, it has basically known the application. I apply after the result. Basically, it is unlikely that I want to be disapproved. Then after the scoring mechanism is introduced and publicized, there may be some variables, which also makes the airline dare to try." A state-owned airline company A person in the marketing department told a reporter from China Times.

In Liu Hao’s view, “Daxing Airport will take into account certain factors in the process of air rights allocation. In addition to implementing the rigid indicators of flight punctuality, it also includes which airlines have assumed the main role in the construction of the new airport. ," and "Which airlines have the ability to weave networks, and which ones are more suitable for point-to-point operations, these will all be factors to consider."

According to the information disclosed by Liu Shaoyong, chairman of China Eastern Airlines, in an interview with the media during the National Two Sessions, China Eastern Airlines’ initial infrastructure investment in Daxing Airport has reached 13.2 billion yuan, and the total investment in the future will exceed 120 billion yuan.

The currently implemented "Administrative Measures for the Allocation and Use of International Traffic Rights Resources" also clearly pointed out that when the traffic rights regulations are met and there are two or more airlines competing for the same traffic rights, the CAAC will determine and allocate the four types of index systems in a comprehensive assessment. Including consumer benefit indicators, hub development indicators, resource utilization efficiency indicators and enterprise operation quality indicators.

China Eastern Airlines dual hub business concept

Although there is no final conclusion on the rights of many popular international routes, China Eastern Airlines’ strategic intentions in Beijing have actually begun to emerge.

A set of data released at the Beijing route promotion conference held on March 18 shows that China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, and China United Airlines carried 20 million passengers in Beijing in 2018, accounting for one-fifth of the throughput of the Beijing market. Among them, only the Beijing-Shanghai line, China Eastern Airlines can provide 7,500 seats per day, more than half of the route's total daily capacity of 12,000 seats.

In an interview with the media during the National Two Sessions, Liu Shaoyong also made it clear that the construction and operation of Daxing Airport is a major historic opportunity for China Eastern Airlines and will open a new stage for China Eastern Airlines’ future development.

Liu Shaoyong previously stated bluntly in an interview with the media that he would “use the entire company’s efforts to focus on the Beijing market, and build the two core hubs of Shanghai and Beijing into a spatial pattern of “Double Dragons Going to Sea”.”

It is not difficult to see from the "going to sea" that China Eastern Airlines has developed a vision for the international business of Daxing Airport. Although China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines had started their “businesses” in Beijing early, they have not been given many opportunities in long-haul international business. Although China Eastern Airlines currently has 13 international routes departing from Beijing, most of them are in Southeast Asia and Japan and South Korea. If you want to connect to Europe and the United States, you still need to dock with other domestic destinations or share codes with partners.

"The development of long-distance routes is gradual. Therefore, it is more appropriate to be operated by hub airlines. We hope to enter the mainstream long-distance routes in Beijing, such as Paris, London, Los Angeles and New York. If Daxing Airport is to become a mainstream As a national hub-level airport, more mainstream international trunk lines must be opened.” In Liu Hao’s view, “Many new'passages' have been opened after the operation of Daxing Airport. There is a new one when negotiating air rights with many countries. Platform, this will bring some changes to the current situation."

In fact, China Southern Airlines and even more other medium-sized airlines obviously have the same idea. Otherwise, there will be no competition between four airlines on a Paris route, and for mainstream purposes like Paris, which were first released from Daxing Airport. Land resources, whoever can succeed may also take the lead in the layout of the new airport.

Liu Hao told our reporter, “Paris is the main hub of the SkyTeam alliance. Obviously, it is more appropriate to fly from SkyTeam members and have strong local partners. The competitiveness of non-alliance partners will decline. It will also appear in other hubs. Similar situation."

According to the plan announced by China Eastern Airlines, 200 large and medium-sized passenger planes will be put into operation at Daxing Airport, and it is planned to open routes connecting America, Europe, Oceania, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea and China Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

As previously disclosed by Liu Shaoyong, “According to the 72 million passenger throughput of Beijing Daxing International Airport in 2025 and China Eastern Airlines’ market share of 40%, we will carry more than 28.8 million passengers at Daxing International Airport by then. This is the same as ours in Pudong. The airport’s passenger traffic volume is comparable, which is the largest increase in China Eastern’s future development."

(Source: Civil Aviation Information Network)